Explorer lost Start button, all desktop icons, start menu

While this happens to be a laptop, the topic is really Windows XP "Explorer" and total loss of Start button, row 24 on the screen, all desktop icons -- the one thing that does work is Ctrl-Alt-Del Task Manager!

There is a photograph ("wall paper") and that is all. This led me to suspect that maybe the user I support could have gotten some nifty free product off the internet, so I used the Process list in Task Manager to look for anything unusual (especially the appearance of consecutive capital letters in the name) and I found:

ANIWZCdS which I then searched and found a report of something that seemed remarkably like this. I am thinking some kind of infection. As a technical person, I am able to get around a little by doing "New" task for:

outlook; winword; local hard drive and folders or sub folders. What I am failing to get to in particular is Settings | Control panel (I know *.cpl extension), search, device manager -- those sorts of things. I also know that by removing the notebook hard drive and using my cable adapter into a Dell GX-150 tower that I can read all the hard drive data and make copies of what I need (everything). I also know in general about "Recovery" disc and recovery partition, neither of which this "customer" has (a graduate student, from overseas). I would like to be able (magically) to solve the lame Windows condition by getting back the familiar Start button and the icons of the desktop but am unable thus far to see my way clear from today's situation ahead to what might be possible.

Yes, I did try

* Safe Mode

* Last known good configuration that worked

* logging this use out after creating a new one with Administrator rights. The difference when I log in that way is that instead of the photograph wall paper which is unique to that original login, I have the vendor "wall paper" but otherwise no Start, no tray, no icons and yes working Task Manager and New task ability.

What obvious path am I overlooking?