Explorer.exe not running on startup. No access to task manager.

Hi everyone,

As many of these stories go, my PC was running fine until a minute ago. It was beginning to bog down which made me realize I hadn't restarted it in quite some time. I went ahead and did a full power down. Shutdown, switched off and d/c PSU and then booted everything back up. Upon logging back into my account I noticed something was wrong.

All my desktop icons and taskbar were no longer there. Ctrl + Alt + Del appears to do nothing, and the same goes for Ctrl + Shift + Esc. Due to the first set of symptoms I suspect that explorer.exe is failing to start for some reason. Since I do not have access to the task manager I can't confirm this, or even attempt to re-launch it.

I can boot into safe mode just fine. While there, I hopped into msconfig and disabled some of the unnecessary services as I thought maybe one of those might be causing the issue. No luck. I am still stuck trying to determine the cause of the issue so I can attempt to resolve it. I would appreciate some help troubleshooting/debugging this as I really don't know where to start.

Thanks in advanced!

Have you tired File Check? Here is the link to explain. Use the System File Checker tool to repair missing or corrupted system files
BTW, do you have access to the Admin account? If so, you could create a new account.
The Admin account should allow you to try and fix whatever is causing the problem.

Hi Pendaws,

Yes actually. I just came across sfc and ran a couple scans with it. It ended up finding some corrupt files, but was unable to replace them. I looked into the log and all the files were natural language dlls so I don't think they are what's causing the problem, but I'm going to try and find some healthy versions and replace them.

I should have access to the admin account as this is my personal computer and I am the sole user. However, I think you may have misinterpreted my situation. I am able to log into my account. However upon doing so explorer seems to be not launching. I don't think making a new account would help, but I could give it a shot.

Well, you never know. Sorry, I obviously didn't read your post properly. :)

I had a very similar problem some time ago and creating a new account worked fine.