I ended up having to do a clean install. The first reinstall didn't work. The second time, formatting the partition did it. Thanks for the help.

I checked and don't have sptd.sys in the System32\Drivers folder.

I saw that thread too, but I can get to safemode. It doesn't stop at that point. It's just that when I get to safemode, I don't have icons or a taskbar.

When you are booting up, press the F8 key about twice per second until you see a screen listing several options, including Safemode. Towards the bottom of that list, there is an option to Disable...

I have a friend's laptop with Vista. When you boot up, and try to log in it takes a few minutes then stalls before the desktop icons and taskbar show up. All I get is the wallpaper and mouse pointer....