Member Avatar for geebo

After logging on to our eMachine, the desktop icons and taskbar appear and disappear consistently. If you catch them on, they will function. IE and other programs can successfully be accessed from task manager. In safe mode, desktop icons & taskbar are missing. Reinstall Windows CD does not work. I have rolled back to last previous working mode to no avail. Kellys fixes didn't work.

Prior to this problem, son was loading limewire, using the program with ipod, then uninstalling it. It has been deleted and I can't find any left over files.

Could I have changed a vital setting while attempting to 'clean up' the pc? I've seen similare posts but not with functioning, alusive icons/taskbar. Can anyone help?

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by caperjack

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Brief summary and focussed next steps drawn from 's report and 's suggestions. The symptom set (icons + taskbar appearing/disappearing, programs still runnable from Task Manager, Safe Mode also missing shell UI, restore/reinstall/Kelly's fixes failing) points away from a simple display setting and toward one of two things: Explorer is not staying loaded (crashing or being replaced), or Winlogon/startup values have been changed (often by malware or a bad installer). The fastest useful tests can be done from Task Manager since the normal desktop is unreliable.

Immediate checks (use Task Manager -> File -> New Task to run these):

  • Try restarting Explorer: end any running explorer.exe, then run explorer.exe from New Task to see if the shell stays up or dies again.
  • Open Event Viewer with eventvwr.msc to look for repeated explorer/application errors that show a crash time and faulting module.
  • Run msconfig to do a selective startup (temporarily disable non-Microsoft startup items/services) to see if the problem stops.

Registry checks (export the key before editing):

Open: regedit
Path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

Expected values:
Shell    = explorer.exe
Userinit = %SystemRoot%\system32\userinit.exe,

If those values are different, restore them exactly as above and reboot. Many hijackers replace those to run other programs instead of the normal shell.

Workarounds and further diagnosis:

# create a test admin account from Task Manager -> New Task -> cmd
net user tempuser StrongPass123! /add
net localgroup administrators tempuser /add

Log into that test account to see if the problem is per-user (corrupt profile) versus system-wide. Run sfc /scannow from an elevated command prompt to repair protected system files. If malware is suspected (LimeWire or P2P use noted), prefer an offline rescue scan (bootable AV rescue image) so an active rootkit cannot hide.

If these checks show repeated explorer crashes or altered Winlogon keys and cleaning fails, back up personal data and consider a clean OS reinstall. Always export registry keys before edits and avoid deleting unknown values without a backup.

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Member Avatar for caperjack

can you do a system restore back a month or so to before the problem started .
start/allprograms/accessories/system tools./system restore

Member Avatar for geebo

Yes, I did do that yesterday.
1 month was as far back as I could choose. The on and off may have slowed a few seconds after that, but that's all. Thank you for replying to a frustrated newbie. Have any tips?

Member Avatar for caperjack

first thing i would try is going to control panel,users and create a new account ,see if the same happens to it ,maybe you account is corrupt.
if that doesn't make a difference ,get Spybot search and destroy and Ad-Aware, CCleaner and run a scan of you computer .you can find these programs at .www.filehippo.com

Member Avatar for geebo

Thanks Caperjack. I failed to mention that the control panel is missing. It is the only program I have missed in troubleshooting this thing.

Member Avatar for caperjack

in windows task manager ,click on new task type in control panel ,if control panel works from there ,go to users and create new one

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