All icons and start task bar disappeared!

looney2ns,

* Restart the computer
* At the first beep (older systems) or on the blue Dell screen (new systems), tap the F8 key (do not hold it down)
* At some point, the Advanced Options menu will appear
* Scroll to and select Safe Mode [press the Enter key]
* At the operating system listing [press the Enter key]
* Windows will start in Safe Mode. Close any boxes that may open, just get to the desktop. Did the icons and taskbar show? If yes, click Start- Shutdown- Restart- OK or Click Start- Turn Off Computer- Restart
* Do they now show up in normal mode?

No, still same results in safe mode. Nothing but the desktop wallpaper and mouse pointer appears. Mouse point will move just fine. Press control-alt-del and task window appears, It doesn't show any task's running. I can select shut down at this window and computer will shut down normally.

Any further suggestions appreciated.

Thanks

looney2ns,

Get back into normal mode.
* Press the Windows + Pause/Break keys (does the box appear?)
* If yes, click the Hardware tab and/or the Device Manager button
* Click the + left of Display Adapters
* Double-click the video card listing
* Click the Driver tab
* Click the Roll Back Driver button, follow the prompts. Restart the system when finished. Any change?

Chris, that key combo produces no results. Nada.

This is win98se. Isn't the driver rollback feature in XP?

Thanks for the help. Any other suggestion?

 

looney2ns,

Sorry.

* Restart the computer
* At the first beep (older systems) or on the blue Dell screen (new systems), tap the F8 key (do not hold it down)
* At some point, the Advanced Options menu will appear
* Scroll to and select Safe Mode Command Prompt Only [press the ENTER key]
* Type CD\ [press the ENTER key]
* Type CD WINDOWS\COMMAND [press the ENTER key]
* Type SCANREG /RESTORE [press the ENTER key]
* Choose the oldest date PRIOR to your issue
* Click OK
* When finished, reboot the system. If you still have the same issue, run the scanreg /restore again but choose an even earlier date

Chris, attempted your suggestion. No go. Still same result.

I've been looking at some other forums and there seems to be LOTS of people with the same issue. But there also seems to not be any clear cut solution or reason for the problem.

Any more tricks up your sleeve? :)

looney2ns,

Will you provide to me some of those links?

If you press ctrl-alt-delete and no programs are shown as running, it sounds to me as if explorer.exe is not launching, or is shutting down immediately.

I "think" you can run a command from the task manager that appears when you press ctrl-alt-delete. I'm not at home, so I can't play, but do that and run a new application.

Run explorer.exe.

Explorer is essentially, what you tink of as windows. It sounds as if windows is actually running, but the interface between you and the operating system is not running. That interface is, basically, explorer.exe.

Try that. If it works, you should get your icons and stuff, and then start a recovery plan.

I finally got it resolved. I did a install in place of Windows. So far so good. All is well again, without losing anything. I suspect that active desktop being turned on was possibly the cause of the crash.

Chris, the forums I was reading are the news groups located @ msnews.microsoft.com server. Use your newsreader to read.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I now have a working "ghost" copy of the drive. Next time it'll just get restored.

 

 

Message Edited by looney2ns on 11-07-2003 06:44 PM