No Taskbar, Desktop Icons... Nothing.

Haven't seen this problem before...
A computer had a few viruses and some spyware, but when I removed them the computer starts up and can not start explorer.exe.  I could get to a blank desktop, but there was not a start menu or desktop icons. I had to do CTRL-ALT-DELTET to get to the task manager and run anything.  I was able to get to every thing I needed except explorer.exe which would give me an error about not being able to find it - DANG. 

I ran all the fixes I could find an still was not able to get it to work. in desperation I tried the following and both worked but I would suggest the second method:

Method 1:

First, go to c:\windows and rename explorer.exe to zexplorer.exe and try to launch it. If you get your desktop back, then go to regedit and change 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon  to zexplorer.exe

This would work but I was not comfortable in having to change the file names to get it to work.

Method 2:

Open regedit and delete HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Image File Execution Options\explorer.exe then restart the computer.

 Explorer.exe should start up when your computer comes back up.  

Of course before doing either of these, you need to make sure that you have removed all viruses and spyware from your computer.

Good luck!

twitter @dkirkland

Posted via email from Musings, Ramblings and Other Assorted Rubbish