The application failed to initialize properly (explorer.exe)

Okay, so I've been working on my computer since yesterday morning, and actually ended up fixing a problem. However, this is the new problem I'm facing.

I turn on my computer. Nothing loads except the wallpaper (no taskbar, start menu, etc.) The error message comes up "The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0150002)", in reference to explorer.exe.

I click ok and cannot do anything. If I press ctrl + alt + delete the windows security pops up and I can click task manager, but nothing happens. I've tried running in safe mode and I get pretty much the same thing. I've run in safe mode with command prompt and tried following advice from previous posts all throughout Google, but nothing will come up.

I've also tried messing around in the Recovery Console, but everything I try doesn't seem to work. Based on Google results it seems a lot of people have had a similar problem to mine, but mine seems to be different in the fact that I cannot do anything.

Normally I would of just given up and reformatted my computer, but there are important things I'd like to get at on the computer that I don't want to lose.

It's a vaio laptop, fyi. Windows XP.

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

Easy thing to try first. Remove all power from the computer: remove power lead and battery, and hold 'on' button down for 30 seconds. Reconnect and try booting.

 

I'm using a desktop - I've powered-off and re-booted several times. I would try to do a system restore, but it appears that the tech from Symantecs who was working on my pc must have deleted all my restore points, because the only ones I have are from this afternoon -

 

Sounds like malware to me, head over to the malware forum