Resolved PC hangs when starting up

My laptop PC, running Windows XP Pro, hangs when starting up. I logon, giving a password, and the startup process begins, I get to the desktop, and then after a while the system hangs. I then logoff, and logon again and it works.

I don't know how to troubleshoot this - can anyone advise what I could check?

 

Hello Steve - I leave it a few minutes yes, and it simply seems to stop loading. I press ctrl-alt-delete and then log off from tha task manager, it takes me back to the login page, I re-login and it always works then. Its happened for a few weeks now, so I cannot remember any specific event that may have caused it. I am part of a small office network network, and a printer was added not long ago, but I cannot be sure the events are connected.
(Thanks for your answer re the backup on other thread ... at least now I know what I was planning was in fact making sense ;-))

 

Hello Steve - I did what you suggested (FILE->New/Run and run Explorer.exe), and nothing happened then. Again, an incomplete load. I noticed that when bringing up Task Manager and logging off, it asks if I want to close the explorer.exe.

 

Update :
Now when it starts up, and hangs, I bring up the Task Manager, and now I end the process "explorer.exe ", then do FILE->New/Run and run Explorer.exe, then it works without logging out and back in again.

But why it hangs in the first place ... ?

 

Thanks Arie - this fixed it. I disabled one 3rd party shell extension, then I downloaded a newer version of that software, and then all seems to be OK. Thanks for the advice.