I sure hope someone can help me figure this one out. My IBM laptop using XP starts up, boots up fine, but once I try to open ANY programs it gives me the little waiting cursor, turns back into the arrow and "Poof" nothing happens. It doesn't matter if I open from the start menu or the desktop.

Hi dumber, can you follow the procedure in the "Pre-Work" link in my signature please.

Before doing that - put your XP CD into the drive, click on start > run and type in sfc /scannow ------- there is a space between the sfc and the /. Then press enter.