Solved desktop icons and taskbar don't appear

[dsscottage]

It's a long story but I was cleaning up a very old computer so that I could create a new partition and install Linix to experiment.

In order to partition, I ran dskchk /r and defrag. Then I ran aomei disk partition to create the new partition. After this process was finished, Windows booted but there were no desktop icons or taskbar. During the boot process, the welcome screen displayed for a long time, then it displayed the message "programming your desktop" for a very long time. After that, the desktop wallpaper appeared but there were no desktop icons or taskbar. The mouse was working but wouldn't do anything.

Here's what I've done so far:

I booted into safe mode and it booted to a black screen (safe mode in the corners). The mouse was working but wouldn't do anything.

It pressed Win key + Shift + Esc to bring up Windows Task Manager. Explorer.exe was not running so I started it. A task bar and generic icons appeared and I got a window telling me that a temporary profile had been created but it would be deleted when shut down and files could not be assessed. However, I was able to load Chrome and Edge and connect to the internet.

When Windows Task Manager was loaded, the following processes were running: csrss, taskhost, taskmgr, winlogon. After starting Explorer, it too appeared as a running process.

In this temp environment, I tried to run regedit and cmd. Both replied with "The specified file does not exist"

In this temp environment, I tried to load file explorer and Control Panel as well as every other option on the start menu and the system responded "no such interface supported"
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After a restart, I still have the same condition.

I also attempted to change the boot order and boot from a bootable USB but this failed and booted to the same failed Windows. (I don't recall the last time I tried to boot from a USB so this may be an old computer failure)

Before I cart this system off to the junk, is there anything else that I can try?

Edit: 23/08/13.....
My problem is resolved. No matter what I did including a Windows Repair using the original installation disk, nothing worked. Therefore, I reinstalled Windows. The benefit is a much faster backup computer.