Failure to load after desktop

Hiya,
After auto-restart following a windows update, the comp' fails to go beyond the desktop. All the icons and whatnot load, but can't click on anything without the eggtimer remaining in place forever. Can't access anything, in other words.
Any ideas? Thanks.

XP SP3
Athlon processor

 

Boot into safemode, use System Recovery to go back to a previous restore point, and reinstall the updates. It sounds like something broke.

 

Can access safe mode but no available system restore points to restore to, unfortunately, even though some had been made. Thanks, anyway.

 

You might have malware on your box too. I'd boot to safemode and follow the instructions in the malware section to check your system out.

That failing, try booting to safe mode and typing "sfc /scannow" from the command line to check out your system files.

Try booting from "last known good configuration", it probably won't work.

If you need to manually replace your registry hives from a backup (there are a couple of places windows saves them) let me know and I'll walk you through it.

 

Hiya, Noone,
Did a Malwarebytes scan from safe mode but nothing was found. I tried last known a couple of days ago but that also failed to improve anything. sfc/scannow "not found". Not sure about checking of the hives bit!