Help - Windows XP SP2 - explorer.exe won't run

[nheather]

Last night I had been browsing the forums and then left my computer unattended whilst I watched some TV.

When I returned I found the screen blank - just my plain blue desktop (not BSOD) with no menus or icons.

Rebooted my machine and the icons\menus returned but only for a few seconds - it cycled through this about 3 times and then settled on a blank screen.

I tried booting in SAFE mode and it's exactly the same story.

I've done some research and I have found that other than explorer.exe not running everything else is fine. I can run programs from the Task Manager and they are stable and usable.

If I run explorer.exe from the Task Manager I can see it run and then stop, and I can repeat this to the cows come home.


Any ideas?

Could it be virus or malware. I run Nod32 and that it pretty good at blocking viruses and hasn't found anything. I also use Defender - doing a full scan now but it doesn't look like it is going to find anything.

Any other tools you could recommend?

Other approachs I have thought of is

Windows Repair Install - not found this particularly useful in the past

Windows Update - I'm still on SP2, so maybe SP3 replaces enough to fix the problem.

Any views?

Thanks for the help,

Nigel

 

[Burnsy2023]

Windows Repair Install - not found this particularly useful in the past

The repair install only replaces system files. Try it, if the problem is with a corruption of explorer.exe or a dependant service or file the repair install should fix it.

Burnsy

 

[blastman]

xp SP3??

have they finaly got round to lumping the 70 something updates into a new service pack??

(a little off topic i know......sorry)