no desktop when pc boots

Hi all. I am trying to help a neighbor out with her pc. When she turned her pc on she no longer got a desktop. I can see the desktop theme but no icons, no start menu I can not even get to a command prompt. It is a dell Dimension 2400 pc but unfortunately I can not get any other info off of it since it does not have a desktop to use. Any suggestions? I did get it to boot in safe mode using the the f8 key but got the same thing.

 

Pressing the Windows key on the keyboard should display the Start Menu. If it doesn't have a Windows key, use the Ctrl, Esc key combination.

If that brings up the Start Menu, open whatever browser she uses and go to this Kelly's Korner page, scroll down to line 195 and in the right-hand column, click on "Restore Desktop Icons and Taskbar" to download a small vbs file.

Once it's downloaded, run it according to the directions at the top of that Kelly's Korner page.

If you cannot get her computer online or a browser started, using your computer, download that file, put it on a USB drive or burn it to CD or DVD, take it to her computer and run it.

See if that fixes the problem.

 

1. Reproduce the steps to get the error. Basically, try and repeat the steps you just took to the point where it fails
2. Click Start > Search
3. Type 'Windowsupdate.log' in the field as to what to search for. Make sure you you check to enable searching in hidden and system directories
4. Click on the Windowsupdate.log to open it
5. Scroll to the bottom of the text file. (tip: press CTRL + END)
6. Copy approximately the last 30 lines of the text file, and paste it here as a reply

 

Same sort of thing happened to me. The only thing that worked was bringing up the taskmanager: Ctrl+Alt+Del. Then, once in the taskmanager choose: New task. In the combo box type sfc /scannow (there's a space between sfc and /scannow). You must have an original Win XP setup CD in your CD drive though. All protected, critical files will now be scanned and their integrity verified. Any files with problems will be replaced by the original ones on that XP CD.
It worked for me!