No desktop- no taskbar

I have learned this is likely a failure of explorer.exe. This instance is with Win2k Pro - latest updates applied automatically.

The user can log in and, as subject, there is nothing but a blue background screen - not BSOD.

Using task manager to start explorer gives a brief flash and no more, as if it is a corrupted program. CMD starts a DOS window and explorer.exe is confirmed located in the C:\winnt folder with a date 19-06-2003. Seems quite old.

Safe mode also gives no desktop nor a taskbar.

Where might I find a working version of explorer?

Thanks
Phil

 

It might be malware.

I had a virus take away my taskbar and icons but still had the desktop background. It wouldn't allow me to do anything in windows at all and I ended up booting to DOS and formatting my hard drive.

 

No desktop- no taskbar - solved - THANKS!

Clearly, this problem has a few causes and a few solutions. I am VERY grateful to all posters of solutions into these threads as I did solve it on a W2k machine by attempting one suggested fix after the other.

The final solution in this case was to take browseui.dll and shdocvw.dll from a working W2k machine and replace them (rename copies first).

This problem occured on the first boot after a W2k update performed on 27th August 2006; so, when do we start to trust updates again?