Win XP problem

[Lensman]

OK, so I just restarted my PC & reset my router because my internet connection seemed a bit sluggish. The only problem is:-

I've got my desktop backdrop, but my taskbar & desktop icons are all missing, I brought up Task Manager to try to start Explorer, but it refused to start, saying that I don't have sufficient permissions to do that - HELP!!!.

I was able to use a "Favourite" to get here, but apart from that I'm lost.

[Skeptic Ginger]

But you are here?

If you don't get an answer here, I got one from the WindowsXP forum not to long ago about how to get rid of the needless request to chose a user interface when I started my computer.

microsoft forum (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/newsgroups/reader.mspx?dg=microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)

other MSN linked sites (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/related/default.mspx)

And it seems there are other forums looking at the Google search windows xp forum (http://www.google.com/search?num=30&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=qHf&q=windows+xp+forum&btnG=Search)

[Molinaro]

Sounds like you logged into a different user name than usual, one that had possibly never been logged into before and hence has none of your familiar icons.

[SimonD]

Sounds like you logged into a different user name than usual, one that had possibly never been logged into before and hence has none of your familiar icons.

Sounds like you have gone from using an 'admin' account to a 'guest' one. Can you provide some more information as to how you log in?

[Dancing David]

I don'tthink it is this since your task bar is missing, right click the desktop and go to arrange desktop icons, make sure that you have 'show desktop icons marked'.

The taskbar I don't know. That sounds like a boot clitch.

[Lensman]

Sounds like you logged into a different user name than usual, one that had possibly never been logged into before and hence has none of your familiar icons.

Nope, I've only got one normal account on this computer - I'm the only one who uses it. The admin account is only accessible in safe mode, or if I enable "require 'ctrl-alt-del' to log on".

The taskbar I don't know. That sounds like a boot clitch.

If it was a boot glitch, it's got to be the grandaddy of boot glitches, because it happened everytime I booted the PC. I also tried manually starting Windows Explorer since it hadn't started automatically & wasn't showing as a process in Task Manager, but I "didn't have the right authority level", so I tried booting in safe mode, but that hung up at loading "mup.sys".

When I checked with Task Manager, only about a half of my normal processes were running.
The appearance of the desktop looked as it does just before the taskbar is started, anything that I managed to start & then minimized didn't drop onto the taskbar (which was non-existent), but to a minimized window at the bottom of the screen - just like Win 3.1.

Some more IT savvy blokes in work suggested that it was a virus.

I did the only thing left to me - I reformatted & re-installed XP.

[Rairun]

Whenever that happens to me, I press "ctrl+alt+del", click "run" and type "explorer.exe". It always works. I don't why it said you didn't have the right authority level to do that.

[Marquis de Carabas]

Crap. You already formatted.

Well, if it happens to anyone else, here's the probable solution. Run regedit from task manager. Go to and expand HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version\Image File Execution Options. If you see a subkey named "explorer.exe", delete the entire thing. Reboot.

For the record, it probably was a virus that put that key there in the first place. So if this does happen to anyone, running a scan and cleaning the place up is a good idea, too.

[Lensman]

Before I reformatted & re-installed, I tried several times to System Restore, but even though I ended up going back 2 weeks, I still had the same Explorer-less & Task Bar-less desktop.

I had been planning to reformat in the near future, just as a matter of course, this just made me do it a bit sooner that I had originally planned.

Thanks for all the replies, I'll try to keep them in mind if it should (FSM & IPU forbid) ever happen again.