Where's my desktop?!

[Hendricks266]

I've been having this problem for over a month now. When my computer starts up completely, there is no desktop. At all. The only thing I see is my background, which thankfully is a good one. I can run things through Task Manager, but that's a hassle. Explorer.exe does not run for more than 5 seconds before is is gone. Reinstalling XP SP2 and installing XP SP3 did not help, nor did system restore, a variety of registry "solutions", or anything else.

Please help me! :(

[Superczar]

Hrm, can you log in as a different user and check to see if it loads for that user?

[avatar_58]

Sounds like something is running and stopping it from working. What is your virus scanner? Norton does this a lot.

[Hendricks266]

I use AVG Free. I currently have 7.5, I'm upgrading to 8.0 today.

[NutWrench]

1) Have you run ScanDisk?

2) Try running the System File Checker. Start --> Run "sfc /scannow" (You'll need your Windows XP CD for this). This program will check to see if any of your Windows system files are damaged or missing and replace them.

3) When you get the blank desktop, can you still bring up the Task Manager?

[Hendricks266]

1) Have you run ScanDisk?

No, but it did that automatic startup scan thing.

2) Try running the System File Checker. Start --> Run "sfc /scannow" (You'll need your Windows XP CD for this). This program will check to see if any of your Windows system files are damaged or missing and replace them.

I did that, but see, I don't have my particular XP CD, so it didn't do any good. Now, if it would have posted a log, I might be able to do something with fixing it.

3) When you get the blank desktop, can you still bring up the Task Manager?

Yes.

[Mr.Fibbles]

Is "explorer.exe" running? That is the base of XP and the task bar etc. You can try to "start a new process" and run explorer.exe.

EDIT: That will fix it then (if it works) but it sounds more like a registry thing or something (possibly HDD) where explorer is not opening.

[FireFly]

I did that, but see, I don't have my particular XP CD, so it didn't do any good. Now, if it would have posted a log, I might be able to do something with fixing it.
The log is in event viewer. Just create a new task called eventvwr, and check through the application and system logs for problems.

[Wellenreiter]

Have you tried save mode? Can you still right click on the desktop? If you can, somebody might have played a prank on you. :D

[Dopefish7590]

Here are a few suggestions you could try:

If one doesn't work, try the next one.

Try to start the process "explorer" (As Mr. Fibbles suggested)
OR
Try starting a process "chkdsk".
OR
Start a process "SFC" (as Nutwrench said)
Scan the system only and don't bother replacing things. *Since you don't have an XP CD)
OR
1) Try staring a process "cmd".
2) In the black window that pops up, navigate to your Start Menu's "Startup" folder. (cd C:\Documents and Settings\<username here>\Start Menu\Programs\Startup should do the trick, I am not on a Windows computer right now so the folder might be the wrong name.)
3) Type "DIR /A H" and make sure there are no files that are not supposed to be there.
OR
Start up a process "msconfig"
Uncheck any suspicious tasks and startup options.
OR
Start up a process "regedit"
navigate to the following locations and make sure there is nothing suspicious:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Run
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\RunOnce
OR (Not sure if this applies in XP)
Start a process "sysedit"
Make sure nothing odd is being loaded.
OR
Start the process "eventvwr" (as Firefly said)
And make sure everything is alright in the file. If anything seems suspicious, post it here.

I hope this helps.

[NutWrench]

You might also have a Windows Service that can't start. Check services.msc and look for any vital services that are set to Manual or Disabled.

[Hendricks266]

Well, this problem is gone, simply because that hard drive crashed. My other hard drive with all my mods and everything is OK.