Vista Startup, Desktop, and all around everything problem.

Hey all, i'm new to this board and to Vista.

I'm having problems with Vista on my parents office computer, and i'm trying to keep from having to reinstall everything! I've looked all over google trying to find other peeps with the same problem, but I still havn't found a solution.

The computer is an HP Pavilion, with Vista Home Premium.

While starting up, after the welcome screen, it takes me to my desktop. All I can see is the curser and the background. It's as if explorer.exe will not start.

I can't start explorer.exe, because ctrl,alt,dlt, will not work at all. I've tried this in safe mode also, but it yields the same results. I've also gone into command prompt and checked the regedit to see if the shell or w/e for explorer.exe was screwed up, but everything looks fine there. And regedit is the only thing I have been able to start in command prompt, system restore and explorer.exe will not start from there, well, they will start but they will not display at all. Its like everything is running in the background.

I've really run out of ideas on what exactly to do here. It's really frustating when I can't use ctrl, alt, delete, thats my little safety net lol.

Any ideas? Thanks for any help!

P.S. I've tried to stick with XP as long as I can, but i've been forced into Vista finally lol. It's been frustrating and it really has me wanting to move back to my Mac, so I hope this board can shine a little light on me before I give up on it lol.

I am having the same problem and also checked the registry settings you mentioned.

I wonder if this means it is somekind of virus? Seems strange we would both have the same problem... BUT I do have an HP too.. so maybe that is the issue.

Anytime vista crashed for me on this PC in the past it seemed to be related to a graphics card problem.. so that coud be the issue too..?

I wonder the same thing as you. Its weird though, there were no signs of a virus. The only thing I did before all this started, was try to print something from quickbooks. The computer froze, so I restarted. Then this all began. It could be anything as far as I know.

Did you try to go to a previous restore point?

My system restore came up but it says there are no restore points. I had this happen before and was able to go into safe mode and create a restore point and then it worked. I think if I could get into safe mode I might be able to do that again.

Bu any chance did you have your windows updater turned off? I did.. I am wondering if this might be part o the problem.

If you have access to a Vista Install disk, you should pop it in and try the repair install option. I believe it also gives you an option to use system restore, something that is worth a try.

I have the recovery disks that I created as backup, is this the same thing?

But I read where someone said somehting similar about the install disk.. but I was able to see this option screen by hitting F8 and then clicking on repair computer.. is this the same thing?

No Vista installation CD? You can still download a Vista recovery disc

Sometimes a recovery disk is just an image of your hard disk. This will not work. The Repair disk referenced in that article should work fine if you do not have a normal installation disk for Vista.