Can't log on properly...

[yaoikk]

This is weird, since I fixed it on the family computer, but can't fix it on mine.

Whenever I try to log on, I can but can't. Only the destop wallpaper shows, no icons or start bar or anything. CTRL+ALT+DELETE brings up the application window like it always does, and I can launch a few programs from there (FireFox, AVG, Open Office, and a few other things like cmd and cleanmgr). Rebooting the computer doesn't work like it normally would. I'm not going to crash my computer, though, since I have many files that I wish to keep that I don't have backups of.

I'm on a HP Pavillion Notebook, Windows XP. I noticed a lot of other posters ran something called HijackThis, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to download it with my computer like this.

Any help would be much appreciated.

[zimzim]

Sounds like your explorer process is not starting. To workaround it to enable you to do the hijack this install, when you press ALT + CTRL + DELETE and get the task manager come up on the application tab. at the top you should see "File" then select "New Task (Run)" and you will get a "Create New Task" box appear, type EXPLORER in there and click OK then hopefully your start bar should be back so you can do further troubleshooting.

[yaoikk]

Nope, doesn't work. An error box comes up saying:

Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item.

??

[zimzim]

it seems you've lost permissions to the explorer.exe, personally i'd see if you can launch system restore by doing the same thing getting the "create new task" box and instead type this %SystemRoot%\system32\restore\rstrui.exe  Hopefully you'll get the system restore gui up so you can restore to an earlier point or if you installed something thats potentially caused the issue.

[yaoikk]

It worked. Thanks!

[Joshyboy]

This happened to me but it happened when I closed down explorer.exe process

[guestolo]

[quote name=\'yaoikk\' post=\'383474\' date=\'Aug 31 2007, 04:26 PM\']It worked. Thanks![/quote]

Should I lock this topic then?
Do you want a double check on a Hijackthis log to ensure that you are clean?