Windows Explorer is Missing!!

Hi I have a friend I am trying to help and so far nothing has worked. He ended a task (tree) in Task Manager (he is not even sure which task it was.. something using all his memory... but I suppose it was explorer.exe) and now he only gets a wallpaper screen when he logs in. There are NO icons.. NO task bar.. NO right click...etc. IN fact the ONLY thing he can do is bring up Task Manager and try things from there.
Here is a list of things other people have suggested and we have tried.


Task manager is only thing we could access and we tried to switch to system restore, and explorer.exe. Neither of them worked.

We could use the command prompt, but I am not very knowledgeable about working from DOS... but we were able to run sfc /scannow twice but it appears it did not do anything. We even tried to create another user account and when we logged in with it the screen was just blue..and still no icons or task bar. Also, when browsing in Task Manager we could not find any windows folders. The only folder that appeared under C:/WINDOWS was the System32 folder. So, we were unable to find the explorer.exe file to try and restore.

We saw from command prompt that explorer.exe was in the windows directory but have no idea how to get it working.

He has a partially installed/deleted corrupt version of windows on his computer, so we tried both windows and windows2 to make sure we were in the right one.

We did what was suggested in a couple of forums:
We downloaded a .vbs file from here: http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm line 195(right column) the "Restore Desktop Icons and Taskbar" .vbs file. We Saved it to the thumb drive and transferred it over to the damaged computer and tried to run it from task manager but were unsuccessful. I kept saying it could not find the file.

It was suggested that maybe he had a virus or malware... but we couldnt figure out how to run that without the computer working.

We tried to do the repair installation and it didnt work. It would just abort.
We also tried most of these from safe mode as well.. and no difference.

At this point we are totally frustrated and don't know where to turn for help. He has a ton of files that he would like to preserve... maybe if we have to reinstall windows..as an absolute last resort... someone could walk me thru how to save his files before. I have never done that .. I am hoping it is simple?? haha.. wishful thinking.

Any other suggestions are appreciated...
Thanks
gofergal

 

Okay, so it seems like he just stopped the explorer.exe process. confused

Try this after he logs on.

Ctrl+Shift+Esc
(All at the same time)

Should bring up Task Manager.

Click on File

Select
New Task (Run)

type:
explorer

click OK

 

We have tried to run the explorer but not from start...since we have no start.
I am having him try the AV
I dont think it is anything with the task manager in particular... it seems to be working. I will report back after we try the AV
Thanks

 

Ok we cannot get the WinClam AV to install or run on the broken computer. It downloaded and saved to the thumb drive... but Task Manager will not let it run.
Another thing that happened this time... explorer.exe showed up under processes but it did nothing to the desktop.
any other suggestions?
Thanks

 

Hi gofergal,

One other thing you can check:

Press CTRL > ALT > DEL to bring up Task Manager. And click File, New Task (Run..) and enter regedit and click OK. This will run the Registry editor. Now look for the below registry keys (navigate thru the registry).

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\explorer.exe

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\iexplorer.exe

If you see these two listed you need to remove both of them. Before you do, make a backup following the steps below.

Now you can delete them. Make sure you only look for and delete the exact keys listed ( right-click to delete ).

Restart and your desktop and taskbar should return.

Steve

 

can you tell us what processes are running via Task Manager?

Is
services.exe
running?

What about
winlogon.exe
?

 

Well neither of those files are in there.. only default. REG_SZ
I am noticing that sometimes some things open in new windows from task manager and some dont... we were lucky regedit did.. I wish we could get restore to work.. we brought up system restore but the screen was blank.
Thanks

 

Both services.exe and winlogon.exe are running in processes.
It is interesting... Task Manager is the only process with his user name. All the others are system, with 2 svchost network service and 1 svchost local service.

 

Download this registry patch to your documents or somewhere else you can find it, then locate the nodesktop.reg file and double click on it. Say YES when it asks you about adding to the registry.

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/regs_edits/nodesktop.reg

Steve

 

well he still gets just the wallpaper.. but the good news is... we were able to access it and get it to go into the registry from task manager.
*sigh*... this is soooo hard

 

Is there anyway you can give us a list of the processes that are showing in Task Manager? confused

That way we can compare them to ours. Not sure if this will help. But it seems like nothing else currently is.

 

Here are all the processes:
avguard.exe
clmlserver.exe
clsched.exe
csrss.exe
lsass.exe
sched.exe
services.exe
smagent.exe
smss.exe
spoolsv.exe
svchost.exe system 3
svchost.exe network services 2
svchost.exe local services 1
System
System Idle Process
taskmgr.exe
winlogon.exe

Thanks

 

Have you tried restarting the computer?

Steve

 

haha.. i guess that isnt too funny but .. uh yeah.. we have rebooted about 30 times.. in and out of safe mode.. we even tried to do the repair from windows CD and it wouldnt finish.

 

I don't see the
explorer.exe
process confused

Would you try to run the new task as in the instructions as I previously stated.
explorer.exe
is your windows explorer process

 

Yes we did that before and it shows up in the processes... but we had rebooted and it did not remain there. It shows up for a little while before poofing!!
and he even got a flash of explorer when he rebooted once.
When he typed explorer in the task manager new task it does not bring up explorer like mine does. It only places it in the processes for a short time

 

Can you boot into Safe Mode with Command Prompt?

 

Yes we can get in safe mode

 

I'm still researching this, but it looks ugly.

Seems like solutions that have worked for others, is not working for you.

Anyways, if you can get a command prompt under safe mode,

Type the follow at the command prompt to attempt one more try at System Restore

%systemroot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe

Follow instructions.

 

Check out the BIOS? Possibly two Operating Systems installed on one partition? New Puppy Linux is faily straight forward if you download the iso to burn a live CD, use IMG Burn to burn and verify it, and have BIOS boot order straight. Boot from cd and It will give you access to files on drives so you copy them to an alternative location.
Bug

 

Well we tried that safe mode command prompt to restore and it came up.... again with a blank white field. I dont know why it wont show the whole screen.. any ideas?

 

Not sure, confused
Bugballou may be on to something though. Others have touched on it as well. You may be missing somefiles, but you tried the sfc /scannow, so I'm not sure. You've tried pretty much everything that has worked in the past.

All I can say is try booting from the installation CD (OS) and try to repair it.

 

If you can, run Advanced WindowsCare here, http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4991

Let it fix the issues found and restart. You might check the "details" under Startup items and see what you might want to keep running.

Steve

 

HORRAY!!!
I just want to thank all of you for your help!!! we FINALLY ...after 4 days of trial and error..were able to get XP repaired and he is one happy camper!!!
I was helping him by phone and it made it even more difficult... but we discovered ... that we were not getting into the setup before selecting R.... i guess its some other module. But.. you guys are the best!!! thanks again I will definitely be back again!
Keep up the good work!

ps...that Advanced Windows Care is wonderful!!! I would think everyone should download and run that!!

 

I'm glad you got it up and running.

Using the Installation CD and Repair was the only left that I could think of doing.

I'm glad it worked.:clap:dancer

While he's got it up, I would recommend backing up files now. I've had issues in the past using Repair.

 

Very good advice.

Steve