The desktop comes up with just your cursor showing and no icons appear. You can move the cursor around but no start menu and desktop icins appear. The explorer.exe file has been corrupted and here is a quick fix.
1. Ctrl + Alt + Del to bring up Task Manager.
2. Click "New Task..." then click "Browse..."
3. Click My Computer on the left panel. Click C:\ - WINDOWS.
4. Navigate to explorer.exe, right click and copy explorer. Rename it to explorer1 (.exe)
5. Hit Cancel to go back to Create New Task window. Type regedit.exe and click OK.
6. In the registry editor, navigate to the following Key.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
With the Winlogon key selected, look in the right side window for the
'Shell" value.
Double click Shell. In the Value Data box, you should see Explorer.exe. Change it to
explorer1.exe and click OK.
Exit the registry editor and reboot the computer.
