Sometimes our computers loads Window till the Welcome screen but we are unable to reach the desktop. The wallpaper is displayed only with no icons , task bar & start menu.
This problem is caused by some virus infection which block the process explorer.exe to run and we can get rid of this problem by the following methods.
Using System restore
Open Task Manager by typing Alt+Ctrl+Del or Ctrl+Shift+Esc
Click on File>New Task (Run)
Type ”%SystemRoot%system32restorerstrui.exe” without quotes
It will open the sysytem restore window for you.
Then restore your computer to an earlier time when the computer was not going with this problem.
You have done.
Using explorer.exe
Open Task Manager by typing Alt+Ctrl+Del or Ctrl+Shift+Esc
Click on File>New Task (Run)
Type “explorer.exe” without quotes
Now you have the desktop with all the Icons , Task Bar & Start menu .
Now Click on Start > All Programmes >Acessories > System Tools > Sysytem Restore.
Resore the system to a back date and enjoy.
Tested on : MS WINDOWS XP & MS WINDOWS VISTA
{ 27 comments… read them below or add one }
No windows no such problems and viruses,
Get linux free license
I have just encountered this problem in my friend’s computer. I tried using System restore but it didn’t work. So, I ended up with FORMATING it !!. That’s the best way to solve all Windows problems.
thanks really helpful
I had the same problem. It was caused by a virus.
You can still fix it. Here is how I did it.
Get Windows explorer running by holding the ctrl+alt+del buttons on the keyboard. A menu will pop up and then select the task manager.
In task manager click the “new task” button. In the text box that follow type: Explorer.
Windows explorer should start along with all the other stuff that used to run with Windows at startup.
Now for the fix.
click: Start” then Click: Run, now type: Regedit and hit the Enter button.
The registry editor should start up.
Go the the key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SOFTWARE / MICROSOFT / WINDOWS NT / CURRENTVERSION / WINLOGON.
Now look for the entry called: Shell. Double click it to open, change the value to Explorer.exe (nothing else, just that)
Click OK and close the registry editor.
You can now reboot your PC to test if it worked.
@Wayne
Thanks your post is very help to me thnks again
“Wayne said on 18-08-2009″ :your post is very good
it worked well for said problem
@Wayne
Thx Wayne, i had a same problem and it worked perfectly for me too.
problem resolved great work buddy keep going……
Great solution! It works!
Great Thanks,working too on Windows 7
@wayne,it’s so… good.it worked….thank u
errrr.. wayne.. it doesnt work for me.. im using vista32..
Thanks for the tip. I changed it. (have yet to reboot). but the previous value was
explorere.exe C:/Windows/Config/csrss.exe
so that should be the problem
THanks wayne.. it workd
explorer.exe was already under the shell entry of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SOFTWARE / MICROSOFT / WINDOWS NT / CURRENTVERSION / WINLOGON – so I renamed it Explorer.exe with a capital E and it worked. Thanks.
@olani
That’s great. I never knew that case sensitivity could effect registry operations
it does not work for me guys…and I’m not sure it’s a virus. Plus explorer.exe was already in there. Tried with a capital letter; no change!
try changing the current user folder too.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER / SOFTWARE / MICROSOFT / WINDOWS NT / CURRENTVERSION / WINLOGON
I have this issue but when i try to run explorer.exe on the task manager it shows up for about half of a second then just stops running it again. I went to all of my HKEY registry keys and changed the value of shell to Explorer.exe and nothing worked. I even installed the SP3 of Windows XP and still no results. Whatever you do do NOT delete the registry key SHELL for Explorer.exe because you need it and it’s extremely difficult to obtain it back again. I’m not sure how to fix this problem but I know that alot of people have this issue and they find out how to fix it somehow so I’m just going to keep checking on what i can do to fix this and I’ll come back on this website to let ya’ll know my results
i started out with windows loading… taskmgr was disabled and no desktop… i held the windows button and pressed u.. it brought up the narratior and i was able to click the link for microsoft website… it brought up firefox. i was able to enable alt ctrl del… now i have got my desktop back… but every time i reboot it doesnt show… i have tried both ways stated above… but under current user i dont have the same options to set any thing to explorer.exe… ive also tried to rename the explorer exe to something else and in the registry and still nothing… i have reset it all back the way it was and still the same… explorer.exe will not load… i refuse to reinstall… actually i dont even have the setup cd.. any other ideas?
Hello all. I seem to be having a similar problem. Upon starting windows I don’t get any icons or a start menu. I have tried starting programs through the task manager but nothing will run. So I can’t get into the registry editor to do the above suggestions. I am at a loss as to what to do. Any suggestions as to what I should do I would be extreamly greatful. Thanks.
I had the same problem and it was named explorer.exe already, the capital E made no difference so I changed it to C:\windows\explorer and that worked. If you do this, make sure that is the address of yours and not a different name for your windows directory… Good luck
I am having this issue as well and ive checked windows registry. The value of “shell” is already set to just explorer.exe but i am still having to manually start explorere after logging in. anyone know of any issues that would cuase it to not start when the registry values are correct? Ive even checked the registry under every user and as an admin in safe mode. All are correct, in fact i had to open task manager and manually start explorer even in safemode. the only weird thing that im noticing is my hijack log is listing an entry that saus userinit, and something about roaming device? im not sure if that has anything to do with it but i know i havent seen it before. anyone have any fixes not related to fixing the registtry values?
Thanks Wayne.
Fixing the shell entry worked for my girlfriends Win7.
I had some “run32.dll and stuff” appended to explorer.exe..
How it got there ?
Thing started to go bad, after installing a USB HSDPA Modem, with no support for Win7 from achinese firm ZTE.
Windows recovery did fix the instalation for the Modem but not for Windows
One more solution
Goto
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SOFTWARE / MICROSOFT / WINDOWS NT / CURRENTVERSION / WINLOGON
and remove the comma(,) from the end of value “userinit.exe,”
I have had this problem for several weeks now. I have no idea why explorer.exe doesn’t start automatically and everything that has been given as a fix hasn’t worked for me. I tried to use fix my Windows 7 installation at startup but it asks for a password and doesn’t accept any of the passwords that I have input, so I don’t have that option available to me. Explorer. exe is present, the registry entry is correct. Any further suggestions?