windows patch problems...I think

I just installed the latest series of downloads from MS. Now I can't get to the desktop.

order of startup

1. after turning on PC it appears to go through BIOS ok
2. I get to a windows network login dialog box...uid/pw/dom
3. enter and click ok
4. briefly I see the taskbar...then it's gone
5. the cursor sits LONELY in the middle of the screen.
6. No right click menu available
7. ctrl+alt+delete displays an empty process box. Not even windows explorer.

I have tied safe mode. NO DIFFERENCE
I have tried step-by-step...DITTO

I am praying for a solution

 

Try a 'scanreg /restore' from dos.

Start PC, hold Ctrl key down after the POST(power on self test) window goes by. At the basic start menu, press the (5) key for command prompt only, then press <enter>. At the C:\> prompt type: scanreg /restore (with the space). When the menu comes up, use the up-down arrow keys to choose a 'started' registry prior dated to the problem. When one is highlighted,press <enter>. If it says a good, previous registry has been reverted to,press <enter>. If it goes to a C:\> prompt instead of rebooting, Ctrl-Alt-Delete to reboot.

Hope this helps...

 

I was able to successfully restore an older (1-week) version of the registry...but this didn't resolve my problems.

I believe a startup file or contents within a startup file is now missing. Restoring an older version of the registry most certaining removed any bugs in the registry as a result of the upgrade. The problem now, I think, is figuring else got trashed.

In 95/98 when you click ctrl+alt+delete, there appears a list of running processes...ie explorer, systray.

This dialog box displays no running processes. The desktop has no icons. There is now taskbar. The only way to shut down is ctrl+alt+del or unplug the machine (hold off/on button)

 

As an additional step, I made a win98 startup disk for trouble shooting. Then copied over new system files

a:\ sys c:

This did not work either. As a more detailed description, startup works like this:

1. Turn on the computer and BIOS does it's thing.
2. The starting Windows 98 logo.bmp is displayed
3. Next, the windows networking dialog box is displayed to login to network DC. This actually is workling at this point. I entered a bogus user account and it responded appropriately. I then entered a user account that had never logged onto this w98 PC and it added the *.pwl
after entering the correct information, I click enter.
4. The PC acts like it is going to load properly...but alas...
5. The systray/taskbar pops up and disappears that fast.

It's almost like some program loaded in statup does a system 'kill'
Again, at this point there are no icons or processes running (as far as I can determine)