Blue Screen (NOT bsod)

This is an odd one. My boss complained that his computer was acting very slow, was getting popups, and malewarebytes and spybot were both disabled (please check to see if the file exists, yada), even on safe mode. So we used Avast and it removed a bunch of infected files, but now upon reboot, all he gets is the login sound, and then nothing but the blue background screen (no menus, no bar at the bottom). so i rebooted in safe mode with networking, and all we got was the login sound and the black background screen with the safemode border. I can ctrl-alt-delete to show the task manager, and it shows there are some programs running... but we just cannot get working XP visual.

any ideas? this is on xp.

AN idea comes to mind

I can ctrl-alt-delete to show the task manager, and it shows there are some programs running

...

can you maybe copy down to a piece of paper what IS running and post those details so folks can see how one might progress from there?

One hopes Avast has not ( ermmm 'unintentionally' )removed a maybe essential file

I presume you cannot even open System Restore ?

AN idea comes to mind

I can ctrl-alt-delete to show the task manager, and it shows there are some programs running

...

can you maybe copy down to a piece of paper what IS running and post those details so folks can see how one might progress from there?

One hopes Avast has not ( ermmm 'unintentionally' )removed a maybe essential file

I presume you cannot even open System Restore ?

cannot open system restore, i've taken a picture of what is running, but i noticed that explorer is NOT running...gonna try to upload the picture somewhere

testing to see if this works