Messages

1

General Computer Support / Re: windows 7 64 bit lost taskbar, start menu and desktop icons

« on: September 18, 2014, 01:52:27 pm »

For anyone who comes across this forum after suffering the same problem I had - consider yourself fortunate.

Shane put a lot of effort that I can never truly thank him enough for going through registry values that I had studied for hours until he spotted something using software I would never have come across - the addition of one character in a value.

Just to add further description in case it helps when trawled by google, explorer.exe was opening as a file explorer window instead of in desktop mode so no taskbar, desktop icons or start menu.

Shane, I wish I could do more but I've paypaled you a drink to say thanks

2

General Computer Support / Re: windows 7 64 bit lost taskbar, start menu and desktop icons

« on: September 17, 2014, 02:27:12 pm »

You're not wrong. I rue the days I closed the nag screen that asked if I wanted to make a backup.
The 'only' good point is that I have lost nothing. With effort I can still launch all my programs but it really is painful when you are used to using the GUI.
I leave linux for work.

3

General Computer Support / Re: windows 7 64 bit lost taskbar, start menu and desktop icons

« on: September 17, 2014, 02:18:30 pm »

Yup, startup repair useless. Bootrec useless. Tried creating another account and logging in - same.
Already tried an off boot SFC which found no issues.
Icon rebuild - no effect

4

General Computer Support / Re: windows 7 64 bit lost taskbar, start menu and desktop icons

« on: September 17, 2014, 01:39:17 pm »

Shane, if you are happy to have a look I don't mind letting you in. I've got an identical laptop that's my daughters and I've been poring my way through the registry, services etc trying to spot a difference. Would I private message yu the teamviewer code?

5

General Computer Support / Re: windows 7 64 bit lost taskbar, start menu and desktop icons

« on: September 17, 2014, 11:26:41 am »

Hi Boggin,

I've been in and out of the recovery environment so much I hope to never see it again. I tried a system restore to before adwcleaner so I suppose I answered my own question as that didn't fix it.

I downloaded a retail disc as mine is an oem system and that's how I did the upgrade install which took hours and achieved nothing.

I'm just going to try bootrec /fixmbr which sadly is the only thing in your helpful list that I haven't tried yet.

I'll report back but if anything else comes to mind, please let me know.

6

General Computer Support / (Solved) - windows 7 64 bit lost taskbar, start menu and desktop icons

« on: September 17, 2014, 09:44:59 am »

Hi, the above happened and may or may not have coincided with using Adwcleaner as a precaution. Re booted and presented with a black screen with just a curser. Ctrl, Alt Del brings up task manager and I can see that explorer.exe is running. Close it and restart it and all it launches is a my computer screen. Strangely, I cannot launch Taskbar and Start Menu from Control Panel\Appearance and Personalization or via the command prompt. I can add windows 7 desktop gadgets to my empty black desktop. The windows key does not launch anything either.
I have tried restoring to last good, SFC scannow, chkdsk /f and upgrade reinstall of windows 7. Various malware scanners report no problems.
Windows Repair 2.8.9 hangs whenever I try to action or scan anything.
Everything is there and working (except those I've mentioned) and can be started from explorer windows but it is a bit of a pain to have lost the familiar bits. Is this a shell problem?
Please help