Start menu/desktop icons dont load??

Hi new around here.. Having some problems =( After I click on the username and type in my password, it usually goes into windows pretty fast, for some reason it takes like 25 seconds then it just goes to a blank screen with my background, theres no start menu, icons or tray and no programs load up.. If i hit CTRL+SHFT+ESC I can load programs via "new task", but if I type in explorer it just opens an explore window..The last thing I did was upgrade to the latest version of AIM and I got some dll error I dont know exactly what it was anymore.. I've tried rebooting several times, I've also tried making a new account and that account doesnt load anything either.. any idea's??

It looks like some DLL file is upsetting explorer. That error message could've been really useful. Time to see what it says (with luck):

Use Ctrl+Alt+Esc to open internet explorer and type "Desktop" (without the quotes) into the address bar.
right-click on my computer and click on manage.
Look in event viewer and look for lots of errors. Until we know what they say there's not much we can do to help.
Post them.

Alun

Hi!
Did you ever resolve this problem. I am having the same problem, however I CAN boot into Safe Mode and run a scan disk, but it finds nothing wrong and when I reboot into Normal boot, I am left with no desktop again.
Every now and then the computer WILL boot normally. It is an IBM PIII 866, Windows XP, with plenty of RAM. IBM just replaced the hard drive with a new one, (They had thought that the hard drive had failed.), in trying to solve this issue. I installed Win XP on the new hard drive, no problem, and all of my other software, (Windows Critical Updates, Norton System Works 2003, Zone Alarm, MS Office 2003, etc...and everything went without a hitch. Great!
Now, just a couple of weeks later, the same problem is happening again.
Please post any solutions or ideas you may have come up with.
Thank you!
Regards, Babe

opinions are very different, some say it is a great thing, i say norton system works is crap on 2k,xp, and 2k3 the speed disk utility is the worst aspect of the program to a ntfs system. the system cleaners, only if you run them in your start up cause trouble, the web clean up and fast and safe dont seem to do much wrong, either way i quit using all norton products, for the reason, after it has been on a few months and you keep getting updates, it just trashes the system. the norton products seem to use more system resources than others and most every major virus is coded to get around it anyway. as for the problem listed above, drop in your operating system cd, reboot, install it over it's self, do not format. use the install not repair, it will be easier. and this should fix your system to a usable state. if you have a virus or spyware this could happen again, so scan for both after the install.

Hi Known Criminal!
Thanks for the response!
Do you mind if I ask what anti-virus programs you prefer? I am not necessarily in love with the Norton. I would be interested in checking out better applications.

The thing with that being an answer to my immediate issue is...I have been running either Norton System Works 2002 and 2003 on my other two XP machines for a couple of years now. I have never had any problems related to Symantec products on any of my computers, running any version of Windows until now.

I WAS on a site that hinted about this being a problem that was possibly related to various games that may have been installed on the system; something about them changing the display settings and Windows XP not liking it. This particular machine IS the one that our boy plays games on, so I am wondering if that could be it. I was looking for any other references to it on the Internet, but although there are many folks writing in different forums about the same problem, there are no long-term solutions offered; only the quick-fix of Ctrl-Alt-Del into Task Manager and starting explorer.exe through it.

I'd like to find a more permanent fix. Sigh! I guess I will have to buckle down and start uninstalling games in an effort to see if that IS the cause.

Sorry to be so long winded and thanks again.
Regards, Babe

Babe-

As for antivirus software I have found McAfee VirusScan Enterprise 7.0.0 to be the superior choice in it's class.

As for your son's games, I dont think that they would produce problems with the operating system leading to the errors that have occured on your machine.

As for norton system works 2k3, it is fine. The part of it that sucks is Nortan Antivirus 2k3. I have seen friends that, when switching from Norton 2003 to McAfee, have found viruses that Norton didn't catch, the most popular being the Nachi Virus. The other utilities including in Norton system seem fine.

I suggest that you fix the operating system how known_criminal has suggested and install McAfee Antivirus and make sure that the Virus definitions are up to date and that you have the recent Critical Windows XP updates.

Good luck,
~Flamez

Cross posting from another discussion:

I know it's probably too late to help you, but I'm posting this anyway, in case somebody stumbles upon this thread while looking for a solution to the same problem (like I did, while searching on Google).

This problem can occur when you are infected with a virus that seems to be unreported on symantec or any of the other anti-virus resources I've found.

If you can get to task manager, go to the Processes tab, and look for a process called 'SYSU.EXE'. If it's running, kill it.

Now, if your desktop suddenly returns to normal, then yes, you've got this virus. You're not out of the woods yet. There is probably a folder on your machine called 'C:\Program Files\ddm'. Delete that, of course. You'll probably also want to search your registry for the string 'ddm' and kill most of what you find. In particular the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/ddm, and anything under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run and/or RunOnce that refers to 'ddm' or 'sysu.exe'.

As usual, I'll include that this entire procedure is something you should undergo with great care, or leave to a computer guru friend if you're not comfortable with it.

I hope this information saves someone out there a few frustrating hours of hair pulling. Your mileage may vary.

umdesch4

I had this problem earlier this week and made up a list of files and registry settings to delete URL let me know if there are any I've missed.