Rant No taskbar or start button

[Edmond]

Hope someone can help please

PC has gone awol really bad, managed to get FH running through task manager by getting into outlook and clicking on a link from a PM, but its all over the place

Think i picked up a bug surfing and AVG went haywire, i couldnt close anything down so i had to push the reset button on the case. It boots up with the welcome screen but i have no task bar or start button, i have my desktop and the mouse and cursor are working, it even goes to screen saver, but thats all, i cant open anything other than how i just said (got a 22" monitor, but resolution is currently 800 x 600). reinstalled XP on in the repair mode, but its still not working, and this also reset everything back to SP1 and IE5 (great) managed to shift all files i need on to my ex HD, it says if i do a full XP re-install it might wipe my doc files, so thats why i moved them

Will a XP re-install do the trick, thought i would ask b4 i do it.

Help me FH-one- Kenobi, your my only hope :worthy:

Thanks

 

[russell]

Like I told you, the system can only take so much porn, then it crashes through sheer exhaustion.

 

[Edmond]

....and i've told you once and i'll tell you again, Boobies cant hurt anything

 

[russell]

Tell that to the Bride whose Groom was suffocated by that Strippers breasts in Jan 2002!

 

[Edmond]

What a way to go, i bet he had a smile on his face

 

[soze]

Hope someone can help please

PC has gone awol really bad, managed to get FH running through task manager by getting into outlook and clicking on a link from a PM, but its all over the place

Think i picked up a bug surfing and AVG went haywire, i couldnt close anything down so i had to push the reset button on the case. It boots up with the welcome screen but i have no task bar or start button, i have my desktop and the mouse and cursor are working, it even goes to screen saver, but thats all, i cant open anything other than how i just said (got a 22" monitor, but resolution is currently 800 x 600). reinstalled XP on in the repair mode, but its still not working, and this also reset everything back to SP1 and IE5 (great) managed to shift all files i need on to my ex HD, it says if i do a full XP re-install it might wipe my doc files, so thats why i moved them

Will a XP re-install do the trick, thought i would ask b4 i do it.

Help me FH-one- Kenobi, your my only hope :worthy:

Thanks

A clean re install including wiping the current partition will blitz it and it should be fine. But befor you go extreme it maybe worth running spyware scans as if you can't change the resolution in Display in control panel it sounds like that AntiVirus XP 2008 rubbish. SuperAntiSpyware and MalwareBytes sort that out.

 

[Edmond]

just managed to get AVG working to do a full scan

But thanks, i will look at spyware, but i dont have any atm

 

[Edmond]

is there a back door into 'control panel' other than the start menu?

 

[Bob007]

Can you start explorer from task manager. X:/Windows/explorer.exe ?
If so, this should give you access to taskbar/startmenu. If not, check processes tab on task manager and shut down ones that look suspect. repeat till explorer starts. (X = system drive)(Google any processes you not sure of)

Can you start Regedit. ?
If so, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/microsoft/currentversion/run and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/microsoft/currentversion/run and prevent any programs from starting up that you unsure on.(google again here)

XP or Vista ?

For XP startup folder. Navigate to X:\Documents and Settings\your username\Start Menu\Programs\Startup Copy everything out to somewhere safe and delete them all.

For vista startup folder, navigate to C:\Users\your username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup Repeat above. (appdata is a hidden folder. Type it in address bar at top)

reboot. Repost.

 

[Bob007]

is there a back door into 'control panel' other than the start menu?

How to run Control Panel tools by typing a command

Run commands for control panel applets.

For System Properties type sysdm.cpl in run box.

Says up to win 2k but most of em work in XP.

Also XP run commands list

 

[Edmond]

Can you start explorer from task manager. X:/Windows/explorer.exe ?

Nope

Can you start Regedit. ?

Nope

XP or Vista ?

XP

For XP startup folder. Navigate to X:\Documents and Settings\your username\Start Menu\Programs\Startup Copy everything out to somewhere safe and delete them all.



reboot. Repost.

Ok, thanks bob, i'll give it a go (got the resolution back btw, thanks)

 

[soze]

is there a back door into 'control panel' other than the start menu?

Hold Windows Key Press R type control and hit enter

 

[Edmond]

Arrggggghhhhh.....Re installed XP, didnt realise how much sofware doesn't work unless you have SP2 or above, so annoying. half way through installing drivers and updates, what a pain in the arse

Ah well, at least betsy's running a lot quicker now

Thanks for all your help though, it allowed me to get into the old set up and shift everything i needed to save onto the ex HD, just got to shift it back now, which will probably clog everything back up again

 

[Edmond]

Ok, more help please, just noticed that a lot of the keyboard buttons are a bit mixed up, for instance the @ is on the number 2 and " is where the @ should be????? there the wrong way round, how come

also got no hash symbol, its a back slash for some reason \\\\\\\\\???? but cant find it on the other buttons

Its all going out the window in a minute !!!!

 

[Bob007]

change keyboard from US to UK

Also grab Nlite, use it to slip stream latest service packs and your drivers into a windows install disc. saves loads of work after installation finished.

 

[Bahumat]

A clean re install including wiping the current partition will blitz it and it should be fine. But befor you go extreme it maybe worth running spyware scans as if you can't change the resolution in Display in control panel it sounds like that AntiVirus XP 2008 rubbish. SuperAntiSpyware and MalwareBytes sort that out.

Superantispyware found things, removed them but I still had the annoying virus on my dads pc. Also if you go into msconfig from Start > RUn you can see a whole ton of weird .exe's

In the end I reloaded as there was nothing of real worth on the pc

 

[Edmond]

In the end I reloaded as there was nothing of real worth on the pc

Thats what i did do in the end, lost a few things, but it was the 6 hours of updating and re-installing drivers that pissed me off

 

[Bahumat]

Thats what i did do in the end, lost a few things, but it was the 6 hours of updating and re-installing drivers that pissed me off

hehe yeah you always forget about that. My dad's pc was from a shop and I had no drivers for it. luckily it was a dell and their website had them!

 

[nath]

Ubuntu Home Page | Ubuntu

For future use, download a live CD from there, it's absolutely stonkingly useful. If windows is totally ballsed, you can fire it up from the CD and copy data to an external drive - saves you taking out the hard drive and plugging it in to an alternate machine. I cannot tell you how useful this disc has been to me, definitely something every windows user should have stored somewhere just in case.

 

[Kryten]

Just a quick ditto for Nath's comments - I have a 3 CD "repair set" that covers absolutely every eventuality - a Hirens disc, Ultimate Boot CD and of course a Ubuntu live CD. Got me out of a few scrapes and helped me out with a shedload of repairs on other folks' machines, especially for cheap & easy data recovery

 

[Bob007]

No barts PE ? pff

 

[Edmond]

Thanks guys, you've all been very helpfull

 

[Sar]

I'd second the Ubuntu live cd - it's saved my data on a couple of occassions.

 

[Kryten]

No barts PE ? pff

You're quite right, I do indeed have a Barts disk too, but it has really become pretty much redundant due to the other 3, mostly the linux liveCD as it's better at reading windows file systems than Windows is, and Ultimate BootCD has all the useful password & file system retrievers etc