Explorer.exe not launching; no icons or task bar

[Guest]

XP SP2 Home Edition - PC starts up, you choose the user, it hangs a bit and
then the desktop comes up but no icons or task bar. Explorer is not running.
I can bring up Task Mgr and launch explorer that way and then everything
comes up and the PC works fine. Same behavior in safe mode. Last known
good- no difference. No viruses or spyware. All recent MS updates have been
uninstalled. MSCONFIG startup using absolute minimum settings still no
difference. No errors in Event Viewer. Checked to make sure explorer.exe
was defined as the shell in the registry. System restore won't work because
it hangs after the reboot, I have to eventually run Explorer and that then
immediately brings up a msg that the restore failed. Wow, I'm stumped. Last
thing for me to try is a repair installation, but I can't seem to find my XP
home CD (my XP Pro CD wouldn't let me do a repair). Until I find the CD,
anyone have any suggestions. Thanks much. -Jim

 

[John John]

Look in the registry at:

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

and make sure that the Shell REG_SZ value is set to Explorer.exe

John

 

[Guest]

Thanks, but yup, already did that. It's there. Even tried adding
Explorer.exe to the main Run section, and adding it to a startup group, but
that didn't help either.

 

[John John]

Doh! I should have read more carefully, you had said that in your
original post. Does this happen when you try to logon with another
user/profile?

John

 

[NewScience]

Search your system and see if you have multiple explorer*.* (search that
name).
Also check the version on the explorer.exe under C:\Windows and/or
C:\Windows\System32

 

[Guest]

Yes, happens with all accts, including in safe mode too.

 

[Guest]

Thanks. Did that. Only have one explorer.exe in a system directory
(C:\Windows). There are a couple of other versions but they are in the
backup folders and not in the PATH.

 

[John John]

Hmmm. And in the registry the value is the proper data type, a reg_sz
value? We'll have to see what others suggest, the other solutions to
this usually apply when one can't start explorer from a command line,
which is not the case for you.

John