hangup at startup?

[Julio]

after further research, I think the problem below, which I
posted earlier, is that it is hanging up after login I
have three users and it hangs up on all of them)

but I'm not sure and I still don't know what to do



help! yesterday, i restarted my machine (Windows XP home)
and the desktop icons, folders, and start menu don't
appear on my desktop. i can access everything by going to
the task manager, accessiong the run window, and clicking
on browse, but I've lost my WYSIWYG.

i reinstalled the system, no change, I downloaded and
installed the service pack from microsoft, no change.

when i start in safe mode, no problems occurr. but i'm not
sure where to go from there.

twice when i have restarted, I see all the missing stuff
pop up for half a second before it goes into the blue shut
down screen

my daughter was playing shockwave games from disney before
this happened.

and before that, windows had done an automatic software
update, and I had restarted. then, i got a dialog box
asking me to fill in my email information including
password and servers. it was saying that rundll.exe needed
that information. i did fill it in, but I was suspicious
of spyware or hackers (i have DSL and zone alarm for a
firewall).

any insight would be appreciated...
..

 

[Julio]

problem solved. it was a virus sent with a fake email
from Microsoft which I opened (my bad) a few weeks ago.
I terminated programs in task manager one by one until my
icons and taskbar came back. used Stinger to get rid of
viruses.