[frax]

For some reason, only my admin accounts are able to start explorer.exe. When I log on as another user, my cursor will appear but the only way to execute anything is through task manager. Starting explorer.exe manually this way also fails, though I can start it using runas. I can only assume there is a fudged policy or registry setting somewhere, but I've no idea what. It's nothing recent, I just haven't gotten around to fixing it until lately. Anyone have any idea what could be causing this?

[Elvandil]

Try using this fix inside the account:

Shell Specification

[frax]

Registry fix didn't work. It's not that it doesn't know what the shell is, it won't run explorer at all. I created a new limited account, same problem. Then I moved that user to administrators and explorer started without any problem, so I can only imagine it's got to be a permissions issue somehow.

[Elvandil]

Have you changed any permissions or policies? Have you checked explorer's access permissions?

[frax]

I checked the effective permissions for explorer.exe, and it is the same between my admin account and the limited account. Is it possible there's some restricted dependancy of explorer.exe that won't start?

[Elvandil]

That's possible. Autoruns will show you those, but it would be a tedious process to track it down. It could be a shell extension, too.

ShellMenuView