Member Avatar for pala

Okay heres the situation, when the screen gets to the main screen, the only thing that shows is my background. My desktop is blank, theres no icons, no start menu, no task bars, and i cant right-click. If I alt + ctrl + del, i can open explorer.exe but its a folder. From there I can access anything. And if I run it in safe mode, its the same thing, only my background shows.


Thanks,
Allan

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Short diagnosis and targeted fixes (faster and less destructive than a repair install). The symptom you describe — only the wallpaper appears, no taskbar/start menu, and running explorer.exe from Task Manager opens a single folder window — usually means Explorer is not running as the interactive shell (either the Winlogon shell/userinit values were changed, the user profile is broken, or a startup script/malware altered the boot configuration). Before doing a repair or reinstall (as and suggested), try these focused checks.

Open Task Manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del) -> File -> New Task and run regedit. Back up the registry (File -> Export) then check:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

Shell    = explorer.exe
Userinit = C:\WINDOWS\system32\userinit.exe,

If either value is different, restore it exactly (including the trailing comma on Userinit), then reboot.

If the values are correct, try two simple tests: run System Restore from Task Manager with rstrui.exe to roll back a recent change, and test whether the problem is profile-specific by creating a temporary admin user. From Task Manager open a command shell (cmd) and run:

net user TempTest StrongPass123 /add
net localgroup administrators TempTest /add

Log off and sign in as TempTest — if the desktop appears normally the original profile is corrupted.

Because and others mentioned a script/malware, inspect these Run keys for suspicious entries and the Startup folder, and scan from Safe Mode or a bootable rescue scanner before removing things. If none of the targeted fixes work, back up user data (you can copy files because Explorer opens folders) and then consider the repair install or clean reinstall recommended earlier.

Recommended Answers

All 4 Replies

Member Avatar for Catweazle

Nasty system corruption there. Try an In-place upgrade to see if it corrects the problem:

Member Avatar for docmart

doesnt seem to be a system corruption but a script running around the internet. A few people have gotten the same issue including myself.

Member Avatar for hp/compaqdave

boot to safe mode,and if icons are there>start>run>msconfig>put check beside selective startup on general page>click on startup tab>uncheck ipmon32>apply>close>restart>done.

Member Avatar for jingalala

You can try a repair installation of windows xp. This is not the recovery console, after that screen you get another repair option you need to try that. That should solve the issue

Okay heres the situation, when the screen gets to the main screen, the only thing that shows is my background. My desktop is blank, theres no icons, no start menu, no task bars, and i cant right-click. If I alt + ctrl + del, i can open explorer.exe but its a folder. From there I can access anything. And if I run it in safe mode, its the same thing, only my background shows.


Thanks,
Allan

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