windows xp, no desktop

[karmic]

Looking for some input on this...

Have a client with a toshiba laptop running xp pro. ran as good as xp could for about six months but now when she logs in there are no desktop icons though I see her background picture... Very slow to log in too.

I can get the system to finish loading and give me full desktop by starting a new explorer shell in the task manager and killing the existing explorer process. system boots fine to safe mode.
Done so far:
- killed all startup proggies
- killed unnecessary services in safe mode.
- Ran a full system scan, no virii.
- Chkdsk reported cross-linked files, fixed them, still no cure...
- Ran system file checker, no avail.
- converted to ntfs just in case.

I'm going to format the system and install fresh but i'm just curious if anyone else has seen this and/or knows of a cure. Like to know why a problem occurs, not just the fix

Thanks.




~ The day I think I know it all, i'm changing careers ~

 

[bcastner]

If I was a gambling man I would bet on it being a corrupt profile.

One way to test is to create a new user.

Then logon as the new user.

If the problem does not show itself as the new user, you can use this advice to copy the user data and other necessary items into the new profile:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;811151

 

[chuka]

Windows XP has a nice way to repair this kind of a problem.
The main idea is to go back to a previous configuration ( I hope you turned on the restore)

Just try to restore back to a previous date, most of the chances that one of the system files got corrupted:
%windir\system32\config
and the files are:
software, default, sam, security, system.

There is a way to back to initial configuration.
Let me know if you need more help

 

[linney]

Similar story here.

Desktop missing!
thread779-613953

 

[karmic]

sorry peeps...

forgot to put that in.
tried system restore, no change.
set myself up a user, same.

just explorer.exe. if I kill the second process, and start a new one, it works...

I just like to know why problems start but this one has me scratching my head.

Thanks for the responses

~ The day I think I know it all, i'm changing careers ~

 

[linney]

There is some mention of Norton having a hand in this.

http://groups.google.com/groups?sou...=UTF-8&q=Desktop+icons+not+loading+windows+xp

 

[bcastner]

I am going to assume you followed linney's link and tried at least a sfc /Scannow

If so, try this first: Do a registry restoration.

http://www.digitalwebcast.com/2002/03_mar/tutorials/cw_boot_toot.htm

And if no joy, do a re-install of XP:

http://support.microsoft.com:80/support/kb/articles/q315/3/41.asp&NoWebContent=1

I really do not think there is an alternative.

 

[supanoods]

I have experienced this in my place of work a couple of times, and after some serious head scratching i discovered that the common element was a file called UXTHEME.DLL.

If you get this file from the net or from another XP machine, copy it to a floppy disk, then start your XP machine in safe mode with a command prompt, then copy the .dll file into the c:\i386 and c:\windows\system32 directories - you should be able to restart your machine as normal - and the problem appears to be solved!

I dont know what causes it, and aint sure if its a permament solution but all I know that it seems to work!

Hope this helps!

Phasid


"If something is hard to do - then it isn't worth doing" - Homer Simpson

 

[bcastner]

What causes it is people wanting to jazz up their workstations. Note the file is also available on your XP CD.

This is an example of why UXTHEME tinkering is popular:

http://www.lightstar1.com/install.htm

I suspect anymore though that the most common source of this problem today is from a virus or trojan.

 

[compgirlfhredi]

Old Shdocvw.dll is to blame
Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 256194. The support article explains that this boot issue occurs when older versions of certain DLL files reside in the %SystemRoot% folder.

Microsoft’s support article states that this happens on Win2K systems specifically when an old version of Shdocvw.dll is present in the root folder. The symptoms in this case are that the desktop is blank or does not load at all, and opening Task Manager reveals that Explorer.exe is not listed as a running task. The older file also prevents you from manually starting Explorer.exe.

The article states that the following DLL files can also cause problems with Explorer.exe and prevent the desktop from loading:

Browseui.dll
Comctl32.dll
Comdlg32.dll
Mlang.dll
Ole32.dll
Oleaut32.dll
Shdocvw.dll
Shell32.dll
Shlwapi.dll
Urlmon.dll
Wininet.dll
Setupapi.dll

To fix the problem, perform the following steps:

Press [Ctrl][Alt][Delete] to open Task Manager.
Select File | New Task (Run).
Type cmd and press [Enter] to open the command prompt.
Change to the %SystemRoot% folder.
Type ren shdocvw.dll shdocvw.old to change the name of the old DLL file.
Restart the computer.

This should prevent the file from interfering with the shell or Explorer.exe and allow the system to boot normally. If your system appears to hang on boot and displays a blank desktop or no desktop at all, search for older DLL files in the root folder and perform these steps before resorting to a complete reinstall.

 

[robFSS]

the above post is not really on target as Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 256194 was written with respect to Win2k