Desktop doesn't load

[John V.]

Hello,
I restarted my Win2000 pro computer last night and the
desktop won't load. The network connections load (looking
on a different system), intro sound plays, everything
seems ok except I get a pale blue screen with an hour
glass cursor.

I checked the MS knowledge base article #836417 which
gives the same symptoms as I'm having except that I can go
into safe mode without a problem. The article concerns
this happening with mIRC installed which I don't have.

My anti-virus (AVG 6.0 Free Ed)is up to date and a
complete test was just completed 2 hours prior to this
happening without anything detected. The computer had not
been online since the test. I've done the usual "Ad-
Aware/spybot S&D/Hijack This" routine and didn't see
anything out of place or strange.

any replies would be greatly appreciated

 

[Greg Stigers]

Are you getting the Taskbar? If so, I take it that manually running
Explorer.exe does not load your desktop for you.

Do you have TweakUI in your Control Panel? It has a Desktop page.

 

[jdh]

I've got the same problem and just posted it.

taskbar doesn't show
Explorer runs at 99% CPU
I've tried ending the process, then restarting it---same
thing

tweakui not installed

 

[John V]

Hi Greg,
I don't run TweakUI and I don't get a taskbar, just a pale
blue screen with an hourglass cursor. I haven't tried
manually running the explorer.exe, but I'll give it a try.
Forgot to mention: I'm on sp4 with all of the current
updates.

Thanks for the reply

 

[Greg Stigers]

You will have to Ctrl+Alt+Del to get Task Manager, from which you can run a
"New Task". But make sure you are not seeing what jdh is: Explorer at 99% or
worse.

The TweakUI suggestion was only if you were getting further. It would at
least let you see if for some reason all desktop icons were suppressed.

 

[John V]

Thanks Greg,

I'm not getting the CPU usage (at most 10-15%)on a 2.2ghz
Celeron. I get no task bar or icons.

Thanks again..

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

This might help:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;256194

 

[John V]

I think the problem is solved. I had two instances on
explorer.exe running and ended task on one of them, my
desktop appeared. Additionally, I had 4 instances
of "asclt.exe" running. I checked the [system
information/software environment/startup programs] and
found a startup called "Hi There" with the filename
asclt.exe. I found asclt.exe in C:\windows\system32 and
deleted it.I also went into regedit and eliminated it from
the registry. The system starts just fine now. Does anyone
know what "asclt.exe" is supposed to be? Whatever it is
wasn't detected by AVG or Ad-Aware/Spybot and it appears
to cause a problem.

Thanks for the input

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I think the problem is solved. I had two instances on
explorer.exe running and ended task on one of them, my
desktop appeared. Additionally, I had 4 instances
of "asclt.exe" running. I checked the [system
information/software environment/startup programs] and
found a startup called "Hi There" with the filename
asclt.exe. I found asclt.exe in C:\windows\system32 and
deleted it.I also went into regedit and eliminated it from
the registry. The system starts just fine now. Does anyone
know what "asclt.exe" is supposed to be? Whatever it is
wasn't detected by AVG or Ad-Aware/Spybot and it appears
to cause a problem.

Thanks for the input

-----Original Message-----
Hello,
I restarted my Win2000 pro computer last night and the
desktop won't load. The network connections load (looking
on a different system), intro sound plays, everything
seems ok except I get a pale blue screen with an hour
glass cursor.

I checked the MS knowledge base article #836417 which
gives the same symptoms as I'm having except that I can go
into safe mode without a problem. The article concerns
this happening with mIRC installed which I don't have.

My anti-virus (AVG 6.0 Free Ed)is up to date and a
complete test was just completed 2 hours prior to this
happening without anything detected. The computer had not
been online since the test. I've done the usual "Ad-
Aware/spybot S&D/Hijack This" routine and didn't see
anything out of place or strange.

any replies would be greatly appreciated
.

Google lists 14 hits against asclt.exe. It seems to be a virus.