Desktop dissapeared

[steve_nfi]

All of my dektop has dissappeared and the task bar. This has just happened this morning. It was fine when I came in, then tried closing a program down and everything just dissappeared. Tried doing a restart but still no desktop or task bar.

Tried restart from last known good config, Still nothing.

Has anyone got any suggestions or know of any viruses/bad patches that might cause this?

[Gatt]

Sounds like explorer.exe is having a bad day.. at the desktop can you get Task Manager?

If you can - try File -> New Task(Run..) -> explorer.exe

[ZeroHour]

Does ctrl+alt+del work?

Does the task manager list explorer.exe as running?

[steve_nfi]

Can run Task manager, explorer.exe not running. When you browse to it via start new task you can see it but when you click to run it it says it can't find it.

[Gatt]

If Windows XP:

Get the XP Boot disk (matching the SP level) Boot to the recovery console

extract a new explorer.exe and reboot

 

If Windows Vista:

Boot from DVD - start setup and launch the repair tool

[steve_nfi]

Booted up with ERD and copied in a new version of explorer.exe. Renamed the old explorer to oldexplorer.exe.

Rebooted and problem still the same.

Started task manager and ran oldexplorer.exe and it worked this time but not with the new explorer. When you try to run this it just says that it can't find it.

Didn't have a boot disk for this SP.

[Gatt]

Hmm... could be something on your system thats not wanting you to run explorer.exe.

Would run a malware and AV scan..

[Michael]

Can you get into Safe Mode? Press F8 after the computer POSTs. If you can get into Safe Mode successfully, click Start > Run > msconfig and take a look at what is starting up.

[Bluetooth]

Hi guys

 

I have had this problem across my whole school. I think this was related to the Autorun-JN virus that sophos picks up.

 

To fix the problem you need to edit the registry on every machine that is affected, follow these instructions:

 

start -> run -> type in regedit

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SOFTWARE -> MICROSOFT -> WINDOWS NT -> CURRENT VERSION -> IMAGE FILE EXECUTION OPTIONS

 

Look thought the list of .exe files and youll find a "explorer.exe" process, you need to rename this process to something, doesnt matter what as it will create a new explorer process, i renamed all mine to explorir.exe

 

Dont know why this happened but once i followed this fix all the machines came back up and running.

 

Give that a bash and let me know how it goes =)

[steve_nfi]

Hi guys

 

I have had this problem across my whole school. I think this was related to the Autorun-JN virus that sophos picks up.

 

To fix the problem you need to edit the registry on every machine that is affected, follow these instructions:

 

start -> run -> type in regedit

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SOFTWARE -> MICROSOFT -> WINDOWS NT -> CURRENT VERSION -> IMAGE FILE EXECUTION OPTIONS

 

Look thought the list of .exe files and youll find a "explorer.exe" process, you need to rename this process to something, doesnt matter what as it will create a new explorer process, i renamed all mine to explorir.exe

 

Dont know why this happened but once i followed this fix all the machines came back up and running.

 

Give that a bash and let me know how it goes =)

 

 

This did the trick, a useful one to remember. Many thanks

 

Also thank god for the 'Emergency Launch Device' from Betts.

[Bluetooth]

No problem =)

 

had this happen to 5 laptops and 4 PC's, that was a fun day.

 

Id suggest running a virus scan as i am pretty sure it was sometrhing to do with the above mentioned virus, however since that happened ive had no issues with the machines that the fix was applied to =)