Home › Forums › Archives › Computer Support › Computer Support Discussion › Explorer.exe Won’t Boot After Vista Login
Tagged: boot, explorer, explorer.exe, login
- This topic has 6 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 14 years, 2 months ago by moovguy16.
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January 4, 2010 at 11:47 pm #31725moovguy16Member
Hi Everyone.
I have been patiently trying to work on this for about 6 hours straight now and finally decided to post here. I’m desperate for a permanent solution to this…When I logon to my account, my desktop background appears but nothing else. I can load task manager, however starting a new task with “explorer.exe” does not work. The ONLY way I’m able to access explorer is if I run msconfig, and then through the “tools” tab select something–then erase the address bar, type in “c:”, and double click “explorer.exe”. That DOES work, but needless to say I’d rather not do this every time I want to use my computer.
When using safemode, everything works normally. So far I have tried a myriad of steps which I have found in various forums including this one. I have checked the registry, assuring that winlogon, uihost, and the shell (explorer.exe) are all in order. I have tried chkdsk, run avg and malwarebyte all with no positive results for viruses or malware. I am simply stumped, and nothing else has worked. In fact, everything has basically led my in circles.
Any help would be greatly appreciated…I am running Home Basic verson 6 service pack II.
Thanks in advance to anyone willing to give this a whirl!
January 5, 2010 at 12:08 am #176491Doris KenneyParticipantI’m no expert when it comes to this kind of thing but it sounds very similar to the “black screen” problems that turned into the big fiasco recently. Turns out the Windows updates they mention weren’t to blame, but the problem is still real enough. In these cases there was no desktop at all – just a black screen – but the rest sounds similar (but not exact). You can check out the symptoms and see if the patch might help. Again, I have no experience using this patch so please read the info on the Prevx site and decide if you think it might apply to your problem.
If you know when the problem started you could restore to a previous point. The other option would be to do a repair of Vista.
January 5, 2010 at 6:33 am #176493moovguy16MemberThere are no restore points available. Do you have a link to the patch in question? I have poured over the internet and keep being led in circles. If anyone else has a second opinion it would also be greatly appreciated.
Thanks everyone…
January 5, 2010 at 7:04 am #176489DavidParticipantI would guess that some shell extension is preventing the normal explorer behavior. Explorer may be starting and crashing immediately. I would try disabling shell extensions to determine which one may be the culprit.
A quick search turned up this application: ShellExView – Shell Extension Manager For Windows
January 5, 2010 at 11:38 am #176492Doris KenneyParticipantIf you click on “black screen” in my post it will take you to the Prevx site. The link is where it says Black Screen Fix. This patch addresses the WinLogon Shell. But it may not fix the problem.
I’d most certainly go with David’s suggestion first and see if you can find any help with that before trying my suggestion.
Just wondering if you disabled restore points intentionally. It might make a difference in the thinking on the root cause of the problem.
January 6, 2010 at 2:15 am #176494moovguy16MemberI downloaded the shell extension viewer but have no idea what I’m looking for here…sorry I’m not really an expert with this stuff. Any chance you can walk me through what I should be looking for?
January 6, 2010 at 3:10 am #176490DavidParticipant@moovguy16 245637 wrote:
I downloaded the shell extension viewer but have no idea what I’m looking for here…sorry I’m not really an expert with this stuff. Any chance you can walk me through what I should be looking for?
Shell extensions are modules that are loaded into Explorer which offer extended functionality that isn’t provided by Windows out of the box.
Some common shell extensions would include right-click menu items for things like WinRAR, Adobe Acrobat, but also things like the iTunes mini-player deskband
Many of the shell extensions that you’ll see in ShellExView are going to be produced by Microsoft. I do not think the behavior is caused by any Microsoft shell extensions, so you can click the ‘Microsoft’ column header and sort the list such that all the non-Microsoft extensions are grouped together.
I would probably start by disabling all the ones that aren’t published by Microsoft, just to see if one of them is causing the problem.
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