Vista Tutorial - desktop problems?

I upgraded to Vista a couple of days ago. Then one time all of a sudden when
I successfully typed in my password and loged into the system, all that
appeared was the My Documents window and a black desktop in the background.
There are no desktop icons and no taskbar at the botton of the screen,
nothing. I've tried restarting the laptop on several occasions but the same
thing occurs. When I go into the Control Panel and try to select the Taskbar
option nothing happens. What is strange is that when I play a video that is
contained in the my documents folder Windows Media player works perfectly ok.
Likewise when I open up pictures or word documents, the progams seem to work.
I am worried the computer may have picked up some sort of weird virus!
Please help!

Try this. When your at your almost blank Desktop, press Ctrl+Alt+Del on
your keyboard and open Task Manager. On the Processes tab of Task Manager,
if explorer.exe is running, right-click on it and Choose End Process. If it
doesn't restart automatically, switch to the Applications tab, and from the
File menu, choose New Task. Type explorer.exe in the Run box, and press
Enter on your key board.

If explorer.exe is not running on the Processes tab, switch to the
Applications tab, and from the File menu, choose New Task. Type
explorer.exe in the Run box, and press Enter on your key board.

"stevie mcg" <steviemcg@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:65E6DF42-C225-419F-AB31-8A76D00EBA54@microsoft.com...
>I upgraded to Vista a couple of days ago. Then one time all of a sudden
>when
> I successfully typed in my password and loged into the system, all that
> appeared was the My Documents window and a black desktop in the
> background.
> There are no desktop icons and no taskbar at the botton of the screen,
> nothing. I've tried restarting the laptop on several occasions but the
> same
> thing occurs. When I go into the Control Panel and try to select the
> Taskbar
> option nothing happens. What is strange is that when I play a video that
> is
> contained in the my documents folder Windows Media player works perfectly
> ok.
> Likewise when I open up pictures or word documents, the progams seem to
> work.
> I am worried the computer may have picked up some sort of weird virus!
> Please help!

Hello There

Does anyone have a solution to this desktop problem as i am having exactly the same problem. When i log on into my PC running windows vista premium 32bit, all i get is a blank balck desktop with my document folder opened with no start menu or task bar. The only way i can get my desktop is to go into task manager and then select new task and then type explorer.exe. I have 3 more account set up on the PC and this is hapenning to all user account. I have been searching the net for the past month with no luck and this is the only forum that i found where the issue has been posted.
Anyone who has come accross this ? I am about to rebuild the PC but if anyone can find a solution then that will be fab.
Thanks
Olaray

Hi,

Click start and type "regedit", then hit <enter>. Expand the branches to
reach this one:

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

Click on the Winlogon key (folder) and look for the shell string in the
right pane. Double click it, then delete the contents and replace it with
just "explorer.exe" (without the quotes). Click ok and close the registry
editor, then reboot to see if this helps.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

"olaray" <olaray.31mow3@xxxxxx-mx.forums.net> wrote in message
newslaray.31mow3@xxxxxx-mx.forums.net...

Thanks Rick - I have just tried your sugestion and bingo it works. I found additional entries under the shell string value. Any idea why this might have happened. Could it be something i recently installed ? Anyway thanks a lot , you have just saved the pain of having to restore my machine.
Olaray

Hi,

The additional entries often come from shell enhancement software and spy/ad
programs, especially those designed for early versions of Windows. Removing
them usually resolves the problem.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

"olaray" <olaray.31ofe2@xxxxxx-mx.forums.net> wrote in message
newslaray.31ofe2@xxxxxx-mx.forums.net...

Thanks. My PC is working fine now.
Regards
Olaray

I wanted to share that I experienced the same problem and searched extensively on google. Rick, your solution saved my ass and seeing as this is finals week at my school, finding this thread was just short of a miracle. Thanks a lot for the solution.

I was hoping you could help me with a similar problem. I have the same blank screen at my desktop. When I start Vista I get all the startup screens but nothing at the desktop no documents folder either. If I leave it for a while the screensaver comes up and I can see it. If I hit ctrl-alt-del the appropriate screen comes up as expected but no task manager option. Any ideas. Thanks.

Some things I forgot to mention, I have Vista 32 bit Ultimate and if I use Safe Mode the same problem occurs but now the windows safe mode message is visible in all 4 corners. Finally I can see the mouse cursor and it moves properly but I never get the loading icon appearing so I don't know for sure if anything happens although there is definite hard drive activity.