Lost desktop, start menu and taskbar after re-start

[Guest]

Our PC was running sluggishly last week, as if additional programs were
running or stuck in the background. Although I run Norton antivirus and
firewall, which are up to date, I thought a virus was possible. Scan found
no virus. I ran HijackThis! and saw no unusual spyware processes.

However, TaskManager showed Napster as being in process, and was unable to
terminate it. I decided to restart to terminate any unwanted running
processes.

On restart, my desktop was completely blank, with no taskbar and no start
menu. The only aspect of the desktop that loaded was the background
wallpaper. I was able to access the taskmanager with Ctl-Alt-Del but nothing
else. I attempted a system restore, with the same result. The PC will
restart in safe mode, but I can't find anything unusual there either. I
attempted a restart to "Last Known Good Configuration" with the same result.
Lastly, I attempted to reinstall Windows XP and, sadly, got the same result.

Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Guest]

Try opening "Task Manager" then go to "File" -> "New Task(Run...)" and type
explorer.exe click "OK" and see if it loads.

 

[Guest]

Try opening "Task Manager" then go to "File" -> "New Task(Run...)" and type
explorer.exe click "OK" and see if it loads.

I did try that, without success. Of note, when I have tried to restart
(through task manager) I usually am getting an error message box that says
that explorer.exe is not responding.