Windows 7 Not loading Explorer on Boot

[sparkyuiop]

Hi all. A friend installed some crappy registry cleaner on his computer that ran automatically after loggining in and prevented explorer from loading. It also opened the 'My Documents' folder for some reason.
I stopped it from running with task manager and started explorer manually and the computer runs fine. I deleted all traces of the program and used C-Cleaner to clean it up and now it's gone.
The problem is that after logging in it still opens 'My Documents' on a black background without loading explorer. Does anyone know how to correct this?
I have tried to put a shortcut in the 'Startup' folder but this does not work and I'd rather do it correctly anyway.
There is also nothing out of the ordinary starting with windows in the 'msconfig' properties or shown in C-Cleaner's startup list.
Any help appriciated, I would like to avoid a system restore or re-install if possible.

Phill.

 

[Jonathan_King]

Registy cleaners do make a mess of things; who knows what other problems it has caused? Why address the symptoms, when we really should address the problem.

I hate to say this, but I strongly recommend a system restore. The nice this is, you can scan for what programs it will affect, making it as painless as possible.

 

[sparkyuiop]

As I said, the system runs fine, other than the boot issue with explorer. As I said I wish to avoid a restore. I'm sure this is simply fixed with a registry tweak but it's not one I have come across before.
Please don't feel you need to post a reply if you do not know the answer.
Phill.

 

[sparkyuiop]

Resolved

If anyone is interested it is done as follows, no need to restore which can cause more problems than you had in the first place.

Go the the key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SOFTWARE / MICROSOFT / WINDOWS NT / CURRENTVERSION / WINLOGON.
Now look for the entry called: Shell. Double click it to open, change the value to '"explorer.exe" (without the quotes) - nothing else, just that.
Click OK and close the registry editor.