XP Profile corruption...need some suggestions

Factual Questions
1

I was over at my lil’ brother’s over the weekend, and he mentioned that his computer is somewhat worthless because of something odd that keeps happening. His profile suddenly can no longer conenct to the internet. He creates a new profile, and he’s all set, it reconnects, but if he goes to use the old profile, he gets “page not found.”

He says he has tried antivirus and anti-spyware programs to no avail. Also, I can’t think of too many programs that kill your internet conection, as most of them like to spread that way. I did a google search and a Microsoft search, but I’m either using the wrong terms or something because I can’t seem to find anything on this sort of problem.

Anyone else experience anything like this and have some sort of a fix?

Thanks in advance!

2

Doh! I forgot to mention that each new “profile” only lasts a week or so. Then it’s corrupt again.

3

What do you mean, “profile”? User profile? And with creating a new profile, do you mean creating a new user or copying default profile, or another profile; and if so, are you copying it from properties of “My Computer” or through Explorer. Also, have you created other users on the machine and been testing if those accounts too are experiencing this?

4

What av software if any is he using? I don’t remember the name but there is a virus or two that can cripple connections like this. I saw ewido fix one.

Otherwise the best solution for a twichy windows install is often wipe and reload.