lost explorer.exe while updating XP

[Tuomas]

Hiya.

I'm sorry I'm troubling you guys with my computer problems... But you see, it's since I got a girlfriend, and her family too, I've been mostly solving computer related problems... Basically so much, I should prolly start taking money for it, or even better, start my own business with this experience.

This time it's with XP, not with Vista, always windows though.

Problem: this computer she has back at her family was not connected to the internet for several months because it just weren't. So, experimenting with it, as you should guess, it started updating the Windows itself. It took quite a while, there were 16 updates to download and install, but finally it was finished.

Now after installing all of them it wanted to reboot, as always. I pressed okay, and it started again, only, this time with no visible desktop. No icons, no start-menus or quick-menus, no nothing. I pressed ctrl-alt-del, and it claims that explorer.exe is running. Afaik when I turn that program off, this sort of thing happens. But now it's supposed to be running, yet, there's no visible desktop, the background image is there though as it should be.

I tried running Windows on that other trouble-thing mode, (don't know the english name), but ended up with a black screen with only the texts on every corner indicating the mode I'm using. Oh, and no, the last working setup of Windows that I tried to run ends up the same, just the BG image. Has anyone had a problem like this? I don't know what to do, I really couldn't go installing XP again. and what could be causing this? could it be, that I installed 16 updates at once and not all separately, and why would that happen?

thanks for the help in advance, if there's any coming

[Oliwerko]

Hi there.

I haven't experienced anything like this before, but as you said, it could be caused by the batch installation of 16 updates. However, if they didn't request a restart after each one, I guess this is not probable. And in case the Safe-Mode does not work, what I would do - I'm gonna disappoint you -  is reinstall XP. From the difficulties I have experienced in past, rarely a problem like this had a confirmed cause and working workaround.

I would double check what processes are running under safe-mode and possibly also check the boot.ini. I've had problems with boot.ini disappearing for example. I just replaced it (deleted and created again) and now it works. These are the unexplainable windows adventures.
If it's not boot.ini, I have no idea and as I said, reinstalling always works, while I completely understand that it's not always possible. But sometimes it's good to consider how much time solving a problem like this can take and how much time would it take if you reinstalled right away.

Anyway, I hope someone has more experience and some bigger windows experts can give you a hand.

Good luck with your hardware. 

[InCreator]

Are you sure it's gone?

Ctrl-alt-del ->
Applications tab ->
New task button ->
type explorer
[enter]

Sometimes when my machine hangs (icons go away) - like after bad game crash, explorer closes. Since I'm too impatient to wait while it restarts (and rarely it will not), I restart explorer manually, like described above -- to avoid reboot

Seems like installation wants to install something before explorer is started, but it's f-d up somehow.

If you DO get explorer running, start->run->type msconfig, go to startup tab and uncheck anything that could be that evil patch... probably some rundll32 or msiexec thing. If you get problem solved, start switching things back to be sure you eliminated only the problem and not - audio drivers startup for example.

[Khris]

Before reinstalling everything, try a few things:

-Type WindowsKey-E, this should open an explorer window.

-right-click the desktop; if the menu comes up, select Properties, go to the Desktop tab and click the button in the lower left corner ("Configure desktop icons..." or similar). With XP, it's possible to turn off all native icons like My Computer, Network Neighborhood, etc.

-make sure the Taskbar isn't just hidden; in its properties, you can turn on an option called "hide taskbar automatically" and as soon as you move the mouse off of it, it'll move off the screen until it's barely visible. It might hide at any of the four screen edges, btw. If the monitor's picture isn't fully visible, the two or so visible rows of pixels might actually be outside the visible area.

-if all that fails, it's possible that being online to download the updates was just long enough to catch something.
You can put the harddrive into another PC or boot from a linux live CD to check for viruses.

[Gilbert]

If you still manage to find a way to launch IE (if the task manager method suggested by InCreator works, or if Win+R could still bring up the Run... dialog, type iexplore.exe), try running Window$ Update again.

It's possible that some of the updates won't show up until after you have installed some other updates. So, running Window$ Update again may prompt you to install even more updates, that may (or, may not) fix your problem.