A carnival of error messages...

So, my parents' computer is acting like a knob, and they're getting error messages all over the damn place.

I can't tell if they're all individual problems or whether there's one primary problem that's causing all the other stuff to go arseways. They're just kind of starting out on the information superhighway, so they're not too computer literate yet. I don't have the PC to hand at the minute so I can't give it's exact specs, but running XP.


Here's the most notable issues.

1) The printer, a Dell 922 All-in-One has decided it's a fax machine. A fax machine, and only a fax machine. It's very insistent on this issue, and no amount of cajoling it will make it want to do anything other than want to be a fax machine. Hitting Print tells me there's no printer installed, even though I can see it on the printer control panel. Asking it to bring up it's settings gives me a "This Operation Cannot Be Performed" message.

I've installed and re-installed the drivers a buttload of times but no joy. If I ask it to look for new printers, it can only find, you've guessed it, a fax machine.

2) Explorer keeps crashing without any pattern I can discern.

3) On start up, I get the first error message see below:

4) On trying to open anything MSWorks-ish, MSPaint-ish, or pretty much anything, I get the second error message seen below:



There's other stuff, apparently, but that was what I found in the five minutes I had with it and I'm already out of my depth. I assumed it was a virus or whatever, but I've tried a couple of scans and can't find anything beyond the usual bits of adware fluff.

I'll get more details when I can, I just wanted to see if anything rings a bell so far...