keastland said:
Looks like the Windows Repair did the trick.

As it turns out, the user has now told me that he was having an issue with a particular application when the issue started (love to find that out after I've gone to the extent of doing a Repair), so maybe UNinstalling/REinstalling that app might have worked. I'll never know now.

Thanks for the efforts.
Full disclosure is a rare event.... Good that you got it sorted, anyway.

James