Control panel is hidden / disabled somehow

[cubby1223]

I was working on a new computer today, loaded with a typical assortment of virii and trojans. One thing they did was disabled access to the control panel & registry editer. Cleaned them up. Hijack this picked up on registry entries blocking both regedit and the control panel, so I selected to fix both of those. Regedit comes back, but I still don't have the links anywhere to get into the control panel, from either the start menu or from my computer or in the customize start menu window. The administrator account can access the control panel, and if I create a new user account, the new user account can access the control panel.

Anyone seen this before? I do not have a lot of options as to what the owner will allow me do with the computer - he's one of the guys who thinks he knows what he's doing fixing computers, but really doesn't know anything, and alcohol really isn't helping any. He's a very nice guy, not being derogatory or anything here, just getting across the point that I really do not have full control with the computer, otherwise I'd set up a second user account and move files & settings over.

Anywho, throwing this out there if anyone has run across this situation before and been able to restore access to the control panel.

Thanks.

 

[Medea]

Yes, I've seen it before. What infections are on the computer?

 

[cubby1223]

There were maybe 20 random executables in the root directory, a couple more in the program files directory, some partypokernet.exe or similar file, and a .dll in the "program files\common files\microsoft shared" directory. The ip stack was corrupt, and bad dns servers entered. I've cleaned up far worse infections in the past, but never had the control panel hidden. Of course the computer was being protected by a current version of Norton Anti-Virus Lot of good that program does.

 

[DnetMHZ]

Was this computer taken from a domain environment where access to the control panel and registry editor may have been limited via a policy?