Blank Desktop on Bootup

[Snapper]

Every so often when my PC starts it finishes at the desktop. All I see,
though is the wallpaper. No icons are displayed.

Pressing the Windows key to open the Start menu does nothing. All I can do
is to press CTRL-ALT-DEL to display Task Manager. It seems to be showing
all normal processes. I then tell it to start Explorer.exe hoping that the
icons etc. will come up. But no, this doesn't work.

The only way to get it to go is to reset the machine, sometimes multiple
times.

Any ideas as to what could be causing this?

I run XP Pro SP2.

Thanks

 

[Gerry]

Snapper

Right click on Desktop and select Arrange Icons by, and Show Desktop
icons.

--



Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England
Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Snapper]

Gerry wrote...

Right click on Desktop and select Arrange Icons by, and Show Desktop
icons.

I'll give that a go when it happens again.

Wonder though, why the start menu and taskbar wouldn't display when I
moved the mouse around the bottom and when I pressed on the Windows key on
the keyboard.

 

[Snapper]

Gerry wrote...

Snapper

Right click on Desktop and select Arrange Icons by, and Show Desktop
icons.

The problem arose just before when I turned this PC on.

All I see is the wallpaper and the mouse pointer. When I right or left
click nothing happens. No menus appear.

Pressing the keys on the keyboard do nothing, except for CTRL ALT DEL to
bring up Task Manager.

Looking at the processes it appears that everything is running, but I
can't be totally sure on that.

This has been doing this for a couple of years now. Sometimes it might
occur on every start and will require a reboot (hardware reset). Or it
might happen once every couple of months. But lately it's been happening
every day.

Yesterday I had to reset the machine 3 times before it would start up
properly. Today, one reset did the trick.