that this students computer has other problems as well.
It will be difficult to diagnose and offer options remotely like this, eg via a 3rd party, but I would suggest he/she first check for any viruses with their anti-virus scanner, then also scan for any other malware with a couple of recognised anti-malware scanners such as the free versions of Malwarebytes Anti-malware and SUPERAntiSpyware.
That would just be a first step.
And one more thing, possibly too obvious but I will ask anyway, is this student using an Admin capable account on this XP, or a limited User account?
Mark
I used visual basic 6 to create a program which my students are using on home computers. One of my students said that when he clicks on the icon it does not open the program. Thinking he was using windows 7 I suggested that he right click and choose run as administrator. He told me that he was using xp but right clicking did help and the program opened. I was shocked to learn that his OS was xp because never have any students using xp had to right click. He then told me that he did NOT run as administrator but just left it as the current user. Now, although the program booted it gave a run time error message just as it was trying to create a MS access database file.
I'm trying to figure out if the runtime error message was related to his inability to run the program by just left clicking on the icon, also why he had to right click, also what did right clicking do different if he just chose run as current user (he is the only user).

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