black desktop

[Alexander]

i have very recently purchased a proper, certified copy of windows vista 32

not long ago i encountered a problem in which when i start up the computer,
the desktop, including icons and task bars are black. The only thing that
shows when i start up windows is a random my documents folder. I can access
everything from here, including an application named 'explorer'- located in
the windows directory which makes all the desktop based items visible once
again.
this is the second time i've had this problem, for the first time, when i
was not able to find a solution i had to do basically a full system wipe,
and reinstall windows. i haven't been able to diagnose what exactly brings
the problem yet. any advice on how to stop windows from rendering the
desktop black would be greatly appreciated.
just one other thing, i have heard that windows has a security measure to
stop non activated copies of windows from working by using the black desktop
method, but i can ensure you that my copy is absolutely legitimate and
bought from a fully commercial and legitimate computer store.

thanks

alexander

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi Alexander,

Hit ctrl+shift+escape to open Task Manager. On the applications tab, click
'new task'. Type regedit and click ok, the continue at the prompt.

Expand the keys in the left pane by clicking the triangles at left to reach
this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

Click on this key and locate the 'shell' string in the right pane. Double
click it, replace the contents with just

explorer.exe

Click ok, then close the registry editor and reboot the machine.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi Mark,

Hit ctrl+shift+escape to open task manager. On the applications tab, click
new task. Type 'regedit' and click ok to open the registry editor. Go to
this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

Locate the shell entry in the right pane and double click it. Replace the
contents with just:

explorer.exe

Click ok, then close the registry editor and restart the system.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com