Explorer.exe won't let me open folders/files

Hello, yesterday I restarted my netbook (it's an Eee PC) because it got really slow when I get it out of sleep mode (it always acts slow coming out of sleep mode so it's not unusual) and after I restarted it something must've happened to explorer.exe because now, since yesterday, whenever I try to open a folder or go through the Start menu to open a program I get an error message that says:

"(the file path)/(the file name).exe Windows cannot access the specified device, path or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item."

And then promptly after that explorer.exe crashes and comes back. When I try to open a folder it doesn't give me an error message it just crashes then comes back. This happens for every file from Google Chrome, to Minecraft, to MS Paint. I have to run Task Manager and browse through that every time I want to run a program or open a file. It seems that this issue has been gradual because I've slowly been losing access to certain files that I use (free art programs such as NekoPaint and cursor makers) and now it's just a sudden onset. I have Windows XP SP3. Not to mention I have a few hardware issues happening and a few months ago I had to use a live USB to get this working again after the registry became corrupted. Scanned with Malwarebytes and spybot and they found nothing. Help?