No Desktop On Startup. Task Manager Working.

I have an HP laptop running Win 7 HP x64. It was pretty banged up with malware, which caused it to boot with nothing but a black screen and pointer. It would boot normally up until the desktop (Windows startup Logo etc...), at which point I would get this problem. I can still launch the Task Manager using ctrl-shift-esc, and some services (msconfig and regedit work), but I can't seem to get anything else to go. When I manually run explorer.exe, I get "The application was unable to start correctly (0xc0000022). Click ok to close the application". I can boot it normally in Safe Mode, which I did, and cleaned up all the malware (there was a lot), but whatever damage has been done to the shell, seems to be pretty hard to repair. I've confirmed that the Shell is pointing to explorer.exe (and only explorer.exe) in regedit. I also randomly get the error "there was a problem starting C:\windows\system32\werconcpl.dll. Access is Denied". I've confirmed through SFC that that file has no integrity violations, but when I try and register it I get another error. I'm kind of at a loss here, and don't want to reinstall Windows if I can at all avoid it. Any input would be appreciated.

 

You can get a Windows 7 ISO using the Microsoft Windows ISO Download Tool available from MajorGeeks. Burn it to DVD or make a bootable flash drive (8 GB) using your tool of choice. Start Setup and choose Repair. This should rebuild the OS without data loss. If it doesn't though (because too much was damaged by the malware), you may be faced with doing a clean install of the OS, Updates and Programs.

 

Are you referring to Startup Repair in the System Recovery options? Doesn't that just resolve boot issues?

 

You can repair Windows 7 without losing your Settings, Programs & Files. Because of this, a repair takes longer than a clean install. What you will loose is all Windows Updates.
Here are detailed instructions.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/243190/how_to_repair_a_corrupt_windows_7_installation.html

 

Please follow the instructions Eldon links you to.

 

That solved the problem. Thanks guys.

 

Glad it worked.