Why do my taskbar and desktop icons disappear and reappear every 5 seconds?

Question

this happens over and over. i tried going to the task manager, went to "new task" and typed in explorer.exe, but it doesn't work. is it a virus? please help.

Answer 1

That happened to me recently.  It was partly downloaded trojans, which would try to work, then crash, then try again, and crash again.  

My current fave for antispyware for free is Spyware Terminator:

http://www.download.com/Spyware-Terminat...

You should also run sfc /scannow from Start / Run.  It will check all your Windows files for tampering or errors. Get ready with your Windows CD though, you'll need it for sfc.