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No Taskbar or Desktop Icons

Ok so I got a call from a friend to check out his desktop because he had no desktop icons or taskbar. Task manager does come up when hitting alt+ctrl+del. Safe Mode comes up the same way. He put an older xp disk in and messed with it so the only restore point was from today (with the f**ked version). I did spyware and virus scans, registry scans for changes, tried updating, updated the graphics card. After about 6 hours of trying everything I could think of and google I have come here. So any ideas? Thanks in advance!

*edit* I also ran a system repair with an xp pro service pack 2 disk and no go!

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If you're getting the task manager, you should be able to start a new task, in this case "explorer.exe"

This will not likely be a permanent fix, if it should work.

Best 2 options:

1. ctrl+alt+del run a new task from task manager called CMD. in the command window, type sfc /scanonce and reboot. it will restart windows and start verifying your system files. If if finds the corrupted files, it will prompt for your windows XP disk. About 80% effective.

2. Recovery console and expand the explorer.ex_ file to C:\windows works about 70% of the time.

If neither of these work, a full reinstall is probably the last option. It can be fixed without, but if the steps above fail, then it is tedious and I'm not taking that kind of time to explain it.

This happens when explorer.exe becomes corrupt. It will launch, then terminate and not relaunch. System restore is usually not effective (because it only really tracks registry and driver changes

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You might also want to use HijackFree from Emsisoft to remove any Explorer extensions - chances are, something is "plugged into" Explorer and is causing it to crash. Probably some widget that adds shit to the right-click context menu.

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Thanks for the help guys! Sadly, nothing worked and I had to just reformat and start from scratch. My friend didn't care, but I always hate having to do it. Again thanks!

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What is the sound of one hand clapping?