No taskbar or desktop icons after boot up!

Hi,

My PC has just started to play up.
I'm running XP Home SP2. When I boot up my PC I get my desktop wallpaper picture & mouse pointer on the screen but, the taskbar and desktop icons don't appear.
I have a lot of buisness records on the PC so I don't want to reinstall XP and lose everything.

Does anyone have any ideas how to fix this problem?
TIA
Yozzer

 

Try for the easy stuff first.

The taskbar may have got set to 'autohide'
Move the mouse to each edge of the screen in turn, bottom first.
See if the taskbar pops out.
If it does right click select properties uand make sure autohide is not ticked.

If this does not work try tapping the Windows key, this should bring up the start menu for you to access your programs.

If this works then I would advise you to copy off your data somehow as soon as possible do you have a cd writer?
You can also access windows explorer by holding down the windows key and tapping the e key.

There are viruses and system faults which could cause this so let us know how you get on with saving the data and we can help you go to the next stage.

Studio T

 

If you manage to get your Taskbar by hitting the windows key

after that follow these steps

right click on takbar
than select and click on Task Manager
File New Taks(run)
type explorer and enter
than it will show your normal desktop again with Icons

Screenshots for your refrence

http://rapidshare.com/files/19240775/Click_ON_Newtask.JPG
http://rapidshare.com/files/19240824/Explorer.JPG

 

Hi again,

I have tried everything you have suggested, but it's still no better.
I've even just tried to reinstall Windows over the existing files, and theres no change.
The only thing that I can get to work is when I press Ctrl, Alt & Delete to bring upthe Windows Task Manager.

Anyone got any other ideas?
Thanks guys!
Yozzer

 

It's a pity you went straight for reinstallation. If you can get past the logon screen Windows is normally fixable. The next stage is to try the options given by pressing F8 at bootime. Can you now try these and see if you can get to safemode?

How did you try to reinstall windows and what happened? Please describe exactly as your data may yet be recoverable, if you still want to.

Studio T

 

I have tried pressing F8 to get into Safe Mode, but the problem is the same there too (no desktop icons or taskbar).

As for the Windows reinstall, all I did was boot up from the CD, then pressed Enter to install windows, then R to repair. It asked me which instance of Windows I'd like to repair and I selected the only one there.

Does that make sense?
Cheers
Yozzer

 

Yes I understand what you have tried. My main aim has been to leave you with a way to recover your business files. Have you done this? Since you are logging on to MG have you another pc available? Can you temporarily attach the hard drive to it as a slave and copy your data across?

Since the problem is not a simple settings fault the likely culprit is a fault in explorer.exe. The cure for this is not easy as it involves temporarily replacing explorer (as the shell) with the older filemon. However I'm not sure if this will work after a failed repair install. If the problem is in explorer.exe you should be able to get to the command prompt with F8 and maybe copy your data that way without havinf to remove your drive.

Once you have recovered the data, you will now have to do a clean install so also copy over any drivers folders on the hard drive.

Studio T