Windows XP

[Coldfusion]

I have Windows XP but it's knackered. Everytime it goes into Windows there is no taskbar or desktop icons. Media Player, System Restore and most of Windows components load up but they disappear even though it says they are running in Task Manager in the processes section. Is there any way to restore Windows without re-installing and wiping my hard drive because I cannot back up my files while Windows is down? Thanks

[Closer]

I have seen this before.......go into task manager and if explore.exe is running, stop it, and start it again from the new process button, hopefully your desktop will kick in. This should allow you to run something like ad-aware or spybot (preferably both - and teh latest versions) which should sort you out. I think some sort of spyware takes over the explorer.exe when you boot up. This may not help, but it did the trick for me

[Coldfusion]

Thanks I'll give it a try.

[sft42]

Have you tried doing a system restore from safe mode? This worked for me after a recent bug in the system gave me similar problems to yours.

[Coldfusion]

I tried but it will not load up System Restore. It says it is running (rstrui.exe) in processes if I try to open it using Task Manager, but it just disappears...

[MTIH1992]

Hold windows button and press 'R'. then type explorer.exe