Explorer fails to load properly when booting WinXP Pro

[James Peteln]

Hi folks,
My Windows XP Pro is always 100% up to date with the
Windows Update patches, my Norton AntiVirus definitions
are always 100% up to date and I run ZoneAlarm Pro
firewall. Suddenly Windows won't finish booting. I get
my wallpaper and the taskbar, Start button and clock are
all there, but the QuickLaunch area is just a darker blue
rectangle and I get nothing in my system tray except the
clock. At this point it seems to hang - no further
progress however long I leave it. Over the wallpaper, I
have a mouse pointer but, if I move it over the taskbar,
it becomes an eggtimer. Ctrl-Alt-Del starts Task
Manager. CPU usage 1% or thereabouts. I kill
Explorer.exe and then restart it, at which point
everything is hunky dory except that the things (such as
Norton AntiVirus, ZoneAlarm and the things in Startup)
which normally run or start automatically on startup, have
to be started manually, one by one. I ran a Blaster
removal tool, but no evidence of Blaster was found. A
full scan using Norton AntiVirus finds nothing at all.
Any ideas anybody? Thanks, James

 

[Darrell]

Something that installs itself during bootup seems to be hanging up causing
items that would be loaded after it to also not work. You could click on
Start... Run... type msconfig OK... click on the Startup tab and uncheck
items you don't need on boot up. Perhaps one of those is the culprit. If
not, you could click on Start... Settings.... Task Bar and Start Menu. Click
on the Start Menu tab, click on Customize, Advanced, expand the Programs
folder, and click on the Start Up folder to see what's in it. Delete any
items you think you don't need on boot up. As is any "fix" write down what
you do.


Another option would be to reboot, hitting F8 early in the boot to get the
startup option menu. Choose the step by step boot and try to determine
which item is hanging up and either reinstall it or remove it from the
Startup in Msconfig.

B-58 Hustler History: http://members.cox.net/dschmidt1/
-

 

[Guest]

----- Darrell wrote: ----

Something that installs itself during bootup seems to be hanging up causin
items that would be loaded after it to also not work

Thanks Darrell. Haven't had time to go through the elimination process yet, but I'm confident I'll find the culprit. I'm kicking myself for not realizing the obvious. The faculty for logical thought is a wondrous thing!