shell/desktop (explorer.exe) momentarily appears then closes itself

[Carl Farrington]

Hi
I have a wierd problem with a customers Acer Ferrari laptop.
Upon startup, the desktop does not appear. Just the wallpaper with a mouse
cursor.
I open up task manager with CTRL-ALT-DEL and fire up explorer, and it
appears for about one-third of a second - I can just see the taskbar flash
up, then it closes itself again.

I have done an SFC /scannow, and also a repair install, but to no avail.

There is nothing interesting in the event log.

It seems to be a difficult thing to google for, since all I come across are
reports of people having 'explorer has encountered a problem and needs to
close', but nothing quite like this as there are no error messages.

Does anybody have any ideas for me?

thanks,
Carl

 

[Carl Farrington]

in message
Quick update. Not sorted yet, as I just havne't been able to find the time
to spend on this one. The problem looks very similar to a Windows 2000
problem where SHDOCVW.DLL is the incorrect version, or a bad version is in
the %windir% directory alongside explorer.exe. The win2k problem is
explained here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/256194/en-us

I don't have any stray version in the %windir% directory, but various
versions, and shdocvw(2).dll and shdocvw(2)(3).dll .. all different
versions, from 2004 (the active shdocvw.dll), and 2005 and 2006.

I now remember that this chap had installed IE7 beta. He talked about doing
a system retore and it all going wrong.

I'm looking at re-installing IE7 beta and taking it from there. I can't deal
with the shdocvw.dll because Windows File Protection keeps replacing with
the 2004 file.

I'll be back