taskbar gone, no drag&drop, RPC cannot start

Previous seemingly related thread (no apparent solution):
http://www.windowsbbs.com/windows-x...-start-menu-gone-desktop-icons-unmovable.html

Excerpt from second post to same thread:

I found that the RPC service is not starting. I cannot start the service through MMC (or any other way). As a result, Zone Alarm, Avast, printer installation, etc. are unable to run.

Explorer has been crashing lately (task mgr shows explorer as the stalled process when an application stops responding - killing explorer also kills the app; restarting explorer with "run" usually restores desktop icons). SFC indicates no problems with system files. I have downloaded Kelly's VBS referred to in other posts, but the scripts will not run. I cannot move icons on the desktop and cannot copy files by drag & drop or by copy (or cut) & paste (paste option never shows up after cut or copy - apparently nothing is going into the clipboard?). I cannot run HJT, print (hard copy or pdf) (print spooler depends on RPC), so I'm not sure how you may be able to help.

However, this seems to be a recurrent problem without solution other than system recovery, so if anyone has an idea, I'd be happy to try it before I recover (apparently destructively since the non-destructive option with back-up from recovery discs (created from eMachines when I got the box) seems to be stuck in a loop).

 

Not that it may be helpful...
I found my daughters were working without a taskbar. Long story short, a program that professed to be a "Taskbar Manager" had caused it to disappear.

Look at third party programs that may want to manage your system. As Pete suggested, "what happened before the problem started "?

Matt