Blank desktop and cannot 'run' anything from task manager

[Guest]

Hi,

I have a Windows 2000 Server system on which I now have a very strange
problem.
The server appears to boot and operate normally (all services are running
properly), but when I login at the login prompt, I get just the blue desktop
background with no taskbar and no desktop icons etc.

I've seen this problem described before in this forum along with many
suggested fixes, such as KB article Q256194,
HKLM\Software\WindowsNT\Winlogon\Shell --> Explorer.exe. I have checked both
of these suggested solutions, but found nothing wrong.

The symptoms of my server problem are slightly different and somewhat more
crippling in that when I CTRL+ALT+DEL to get the task manager, I can see no
explorer.exe process (nothing different there), but when I select New Task,
as soon as I press a key on the keyboard, the task manager disappears and I'm
back to my blank desktop. If I don't press any key at the New Task dialog,
after about 5 seconds, the task manager completely disappears and I'm back to
my blank desktop. Hence, I am unable to run any applications/utilities etc.
on this server.
(FTR - I checked the registry and Q256194 issues out using a remote system
and mapping the drive/mounting the remote registry).

Does anyone have any ideas as to how I can diagnose (and preferably repair)
this issue?

TIA

Dave

 

[Guest]

Oh yes, I forgot.... i've booted in safe mode and see exactly the same
behaviour. I've also tried logging in using terminal services/remote deskop
connection, using the administrator account and another user account and see
the same behaviour on the remote deskop view.

Dave

 

[Steve Parry]

Hi,

I have a Windows 2000 Server system on which I now have a very strange
problem.
The server appears to boot and operate normally (all services are running
properly), but when I login at the login prompt, I get just the blue
desktop background with no taskbar and no desktop icons etc.

I've seen this problem described before in this forum along with many
suggested fixes, such as KB article Q256194,
HKLM\Software\WindowsNT\Winlogon\Shell --> Explorer.exe. I have checked
both of these suggested solutions, but found nothing wrong.

The symptoms of my server problem are slightly different and somewhat more
crippling in that when I CTRL+ALT+DEL to get the task manager, I can see
no explorer.exe process (nothing different there), but when I select New
Task, as soon as I press a key on the keyboard, the task manager
disappears and I'm back to my blank desktop. If I don't press any key at
the New Task dialog, after about 5 seconds, the task manager completely
disappears and I'm back to my blank desktop. Hence, I am unable to run
any applications/utilities etc. on this server.
(FTR - I checked the registry and Q256194 issues out using a remote system
and mapping the drive/mounting the remote registry).

Does anyone have any ideas as to how I can diagnose (and preferably
repair) this issue?

TIA

Dave

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=836417

or try reinstalling Internet Explorer

 

[Guest]

Steve,

many thanks for the suggestion, however, as I mentioned in my original post,
I cannot 'run' anything from the task manager.

As it happens I have now resolved this issue, here are the steps I took:

1. Install a clean copy of the OS to a different location
2. Boot the clean copy of the OS
3. Copy over explorer.exe from a working W2KS system into the original OS
system folder
4. Reboot into the original OS

Before step 1, I had also attempted a second stage repair (by which I mean
during a boot from Windows Server install CD, skip the first offer to repair
but accept the second). I'm not sure if this had any impact on the recovery
to a working system again, but on it's own it didn't change the symptoms in
any way.

Thanks for your reply

Dave

 

[Steve Parry]

Steve,

many thanks for the suggestion, however, as I mentioned in my original
post,
I cannot 'run' anything from the task manager.

Have you tried going in via safe mode and reinstalling IE?

Or perhaps go in under another account in case the profile is corrupt?