start menu problems

[Big Ben]

I have a lenovo laptop with windowns xp. Whenever I log on, nothing loads except the background. The start menu doesnt apear or any part of the bar that shows the time and all the programs running. None of the desktop icons show up either. I've tried turning it on then off and nothigns changing. I don't know how it happened, it happened the other day when i turned it on at university in class, same situation as above.

[jbennet]

uh try control-alt-delete then go to processes and end "explorer" then do file-run and type in "explorer" - this will restart the windows interface and hopefull fix it (the problem may reapper after reboot but it should give you enough time to dig deeper and find out what is making the interface crash)

does it login fine in safe mode?