Desktop sometimes messed up

[alice]

Every now and then when I boot up, the desktop is weird...the icons are
there but you can't click on them, the mouse arrow moves but you can't
get any response from a right or left click, and the system tray is
just solid blue, no start button or anything...sort of different shades
of blue where START should be and a couple other spts where there
should be icons in the tray, but that's it. I can't cntl-alt-delete,
nothing. All I can do is unplug the PC and plug it back in, then it
seems to start fine the second time. What would cause this and how can
I make it so that it never happens?

 

[Glen]

Run full antivirus and antispyware scans with up to date definitions.

Try clean booting using msconfig in case its a startup program causing it.

Have a look in event viewer for any errors pointing to the cause.

Do you have any programs that customise windows. Disable during
troubleshooting as they might be responsible. Check with the maker to see if
its a known issue.

You might have a hardware fault developing. Rule out everything above and
repost if you can't find the fault.

Antispyware

Microsoft Antispyware
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx

Adaware
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

Spybot S&E
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

Hijackthis
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html


Spyware forums
http://www.merijn.org/forums.html

http://forums.spywareinfo.com/


AntiVirus

AVG Antivirus
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1

Avast
http://www.avast.com/

Online Anti Virus
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

MULTI_AV.EXE
http://www.ik-cs.com/programs/virtools/Multi_AV.exe

How to use Event Viewer
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308427&sd=tech

How to troubleshoot by using (msconfig) the System Configuration utility in
Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=310560