Comp r Broke

[SpunGirl]

Sooo....

Does anyone know how to fix my computer? I fired it up on Friday night only to discover that when the desktop came up, it refused to show any icons or even a taskbar. Using ctrl+alt+delete will let me bring up the task manager and open pretty much any program I keep on the desktop, but when I tried to open "my computer" to return to a restore point it stops responding. I used the reset switch too, it still does the same thing. Help!

-K

[Bobmuhthol]

When you open Task Manager, File -> New Task, and type in explorer.exe.

[SpunGirl]

I'll try that when I get home! Thx Bob.

-K

[SpunGirl]

OK, that solution didn't work. It just didn't respond when I asked it to open windows explorerer.

In the "processes" window, there's a process running called "system idle process," and under the CPU column, it says 99 for that one and 0 for the rest of the processes.

I have no idea what that means, but it could be a clue.

-K

[fallenSaint]

Didn't want to say anything at first in case it worked but explorer.exe shouldn't have anything to do with the desktop icons unless you've set the desktop to a webpage style.

Now with System Idle at 99% isn’t surprising being as nothing is running when you load windows.

Id personally recommend backing up whatever you need to save and reloading windows, would save trouble of try this and try that over and over. Other than that Id search for an up to date virus scanner and see if it picks anything up.

[Celephais]

In your tasks run "msconfig", go to Boot.ini and check safe mode. Restart. You should be able to restore from there, but personally I hate restore...

the other option is to go to msconfig again, then startup and uncheck everything. See if that fixed it. If not go to services, uncheck any non-microsoft items, see if that fixed it... then uncheck all the MS items and paste your Boot.ini Operating system line (multi(0)disk(0)...etc) here.

Once you get it working you'll want to run spy/virus scan and or use process of elimination to figure out which item on the list you unchecked that "fixed" it.

[Mistomeer]

http://support.microsoft.com/search/default.aspx?catalog=LCID%3D1033&spid=1131&mode=r& cat=false&query=blank+desktop+after+logging+on&x=0 &y=0&srch=sup

Or just reinstall and be done with it.

[The Ponzzz]

re installing and restoring are bad options. It sounds like you have the new trojan virus that has been going around. Every year when high traffic of holiday jokes go around, viruses always appear.

Run Hitman PRO, I'll bump the thread for you. Once it goes through and you restart and it's not fixed, then well I was wrong, but this is a nice program and should be run once a month anyways!

[Numbers]

Well, system idle process should be at 99% if nothing else is running. That's perfectly normal. Unless, of course, you've got a virus/spyware that calls itself "system idle process," but that's somewhat of a long shot.

It could be several things, most of which were already suggested. The obvious and most likely is either a virus or a nasty bit of spyware. So, run all your antivirus and anti-spyware programs first.

The second is that there's a program you have that's trying to boot on startup and is hanging for some reason. To fix this, run msconfig, click on the Startup tab, and look at everything that's trying to boot up on startup. If you've got programs that don't need to boot on startup, such as AIM, MSMessenger, RealPlayer, QuickTime, WinAmp, etc., get rid of them. The only programs you should really have booting on startup is your virus/spyware program, network stuff, video card/sound card stuff, printer stuff, mouse/keyboard stuff. It's no problem if you leave some stuff on there that you'd like to boot on startup, but you need to make the decision whether it's critical to have it startup on constantly running in the background. If, when you're looking through the list of startup processes, you want to know what something is more specifically, go to http://www.processlibrary.com/, type in the startup item name in the search field, and it'll let you know what it is, what it's for, and whether it's safe to disable it or not (or if it's a security threat).

You should do the same thing for the Services tab in the msconfig window, but be careful about what you're unchecking. There's some very important things in there that you want running. If in doubt, and if it's from Microsoft, leave it checked.

Another possible problem is that your registry may be dirty. It could be a simple registry key entry that's hanging and keeping things from popping up. To try to fix this, download RegClean.exe, (http://windows.about.com/library/regclean.exe) and run it. It should go through your registry and clear out redundant and erroneous entries.

Also, be sure to run Windows Update.

And defrag and scandisk your hard drive when you get the chance.

Additionally, Bob's suggestion should work. However, before you go to File -> New Task, make sure you terminate the existing explorer.exe that's currently running. So, press ctrl-alt-del, click on explorer.exe, click End Process, a warning will pop up, click Yes to terminate, go to file -> New Task -> explorer.exe. This should bring your icons and taskbar up so that you can function more easily, but it may not. And even if it does, your Start button may not be functional. But it's worth a try, in any case.

[Ilvane]

I just used that Hitman Pro thing and it made my computer move fast and it was having problems booting up last week too.

-A

[The Ponzzz]

Another Happy Ending due to Hitman PRO...

[Jayvn]

I installed the google taskbar...then without uninstalling i deleted it...had that same problem, had to open ie and download it again to fix it.

[AnticorRifling]

Sounds like a corupt profile to me. I'd just copy over your important my docs, favorites, app data folder, etc to another folder, delete the ntuser.dat file, delete the whole profile folder, reboot, then move everything back into the clean folder with the new ntuser.dat file.

Seems to solve most of my profile problems at work.

[MangledKitty]

My solution to most of these problems is system restore or upgrading/reinstalling the operating system. To the people who hate system restore: why?

I've had some problems with my computer that result in an inability to open any windows until I terminate and re-run explorer.exe. It's happened twice and I used system restore each time without a problem. If you have a virus that's affecting the effectiveness of system restore, my advice is to chalk up your loss and reformat.

Posting this also makes me realize how hard I am going to install XP Pro SP1 when I get home. Fuck Home SP2 so hard. So many problems.


Edit: This is Bobmuhthol.

[Edited on 12-27-2005 by MangledKitty]