[travellingred]

My PC was working fine until yesterday, when it started to hang during boot at some point between me entering my user password and the desktop loading. I couldn't work out what was wrong so this evening I have reinstalled XP Pro.

Now it loads up to the desktop, but all that is there is the background image. No recycle bin, no toolbar, no start button.

When I open task manager, there are 33 running processes, but no explorer.exe.

Any suggestions what I do?

[Lance1]

Bring up the task manager and click file \ new task and type explorer.exe

[travellingred]

I can open the Task Manager, but when I try to run explorer.exe, or iexplore.exe, or regedit, or cmd - nothing happens! It just defaults to the blank desktop background.

[Lance1]

Boot from the XP CD and when asked, select "R" to access the recovery console. Select the operating system and input the administrator password if there is one, if not just hit enter. At the prompt type:

expand x:\i386\explorer.ex_ c:\windows\explorer.exe

"X" being the CD\ROM drive letter so change it to the correct letter and hit enter. Exit out and boot to Windows. Post with results.

[travellingred]

Unable to create file explorer.exe is the message.

[Lance1]

Note the spaces in the command;

expand Space x:\i386\explorer.ex_ Space c:\windows\explorer.exe

I suspect that you didn't put the spacing in the command.

[travellingred]

No, really, I did include the spaces.

[Lance1]

OK, lets boot back to the recovery console and try these command one at a time

First this command and hit enter Remember that "X" being the CD\ROM

ren x:\windows\explorer.exe explorer.exe.old

Now the same command as before but add -r and hit enter.

expand -r x:\i386\explorer.ex_ x:\windows\explorer.exe

[travellingred]

The -r gave a "The parameter is not valid" error.

Having renamed the original file, doing the expand from the CD without the -r parameter gave a "Unable to create file explorer.exe" error.

[Lance1]

I think that your looking a a repair install or just doing a clean install. I would do the clean install as this one has gone corrupt. Windows XP Clean Install Or if you opt for a repair install

[travellingred]

Yeah, looks that way. Was trying to avoid the inevitable, and the days spend reinstalling software...

Thanks for your help.

[travellingred]

Hmmm.

I reformatted and reinstalled, no problem. Whilst installing the driver for my wireless adaptor in order to download and install the service packs for XP, it BSOD'd and immediately restarted, not giving me any time to note the error code.

It's now in a loop of crash, bombing out half way through the boot and restarting itself. :-(