I have had a bad virus problem which i managed to solve by deleting any strange files for that day. I then restarted windows and all seemed fine until i went to uninstall a program and found there were none listed, ie' a blank page with Currently Installed Programs at the top. I have reinstalled windows twice but it is still the same.

Did you just delete the files you thought were unusual or did you use a Virus checker? Were you able to establish what virus had attacked your system and did you look for a removal tool? Are you able to restore to a time before the virus attack? Once I thought I was wrong, now I'm not so sure!

I believe a bad HKCR\Installer will do that, but I'm not sure how you'd recover from that, aside from System Restore or (possibly) a repair install.

This page has alot of XP fixes http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_... Some require the download of a VBS file. So, read at the top of that page-- "How to use a VBS file" Try line 323.

The virus was hidr and it was the hardest one i have ever had to get rid of. First i scanned with Ad- Aware, Spybot-Search and Destroy, followed by Avira, the free anti virus from Germany which actualy picked it up and deleted it but each time the pc was turned on it returned. In Windows Task Manager hidr was running as well as iexplore but no web page came up. Right click to End Process stopped those but each time i searched for hidr and deleted those they would come back on the next boot. I then did a search for files loaded that day and deleted every txt, and log file in windows but still the same. I have even tried Run/regsvr32 appwiz.cpl but still i have a blank page. Other programs i have tried are avz4en, smitrem, CWShredder, hijackthis_sfx, and gmer. It was after all these that it went but left me with a blank installed prog's screen. It does however work in safe mode, ie' the list is there so it seems it's something getting loaded in windows.

I have heard a bad installer can do this as well putting a -1 in the registry instead of a 1 but i can't find any. I did not have system restore turned on either, dumb LOL.