The Start menu button on pc

[Sony_1]

Hi guys! My start menu button on my desktop has dissappeared and so has my desktop icons. The only way i can access anything is by pressing ctrl alt and delete. How can i bring the start menu back and my icons on the desktop. If anyone can help God bless you and thank you ever so much!!!!!

[Ethel]

XP? Vista?

[Sony_1]

Xp

[Ethel]

Try

Start - run

Type

Explorer.exe

and hit the enter key

[rojash]

Alternatively, if you have a practical joker in the house:

Move mouse pointer to very bottom of screen and see if it changes to up-down (sizing) arrow. If it does, hold down left mouse button and drag upwards to return the task bar to it's normal size.
Next right-click on the desktop, choose "arrange icons by", and ensure there is a tick by "show desktop icons".

[Sony_1]

lol, nope the pointer doesn't change and when i right click on the desktop nothing appears

[Ethel]

Did you try the Explorer.exe?

Try opening your task manager (CTRL, alt and delete together), and in processes, highlight
explorer.exe and click 'end task'.

Now open task manager again, Click File - new task
and type
explorer.exe
in the box

[Sony_1]

yeah i did nothing happened and i tried again and nothing happened

[pauln90]

I had this problem several months ago and after a lot of trial and error found that it was caused by Virtuemonde which whilst being an ad ware program not only caused pop ups but also infected the registry and caused the symptoms you describe.

By using ctrl alt del then File and new task and raising explorer exe I managed to gain the desktop icons and start button and then downloaded the Vundo fix tool , which was free, and removed it from the system. Lavasoft do claim that new versions of Ad-Aware will remove this nasty.

[realaleman]

Hi Sony
I got this problem the other day when I downloaded the XP service pack 3 that was being offered as an update. A re-boot did not help, of course, so I used the task manager to get out of it as described above by Ethel.

This info may be of use to anyone else who thought this upgrade might be a good idea.