Please Help - Laptop Will Only Hibernate

[C.M.]

Hello; I'm terribly sorry if this is the wrong place to be posting this question.

Yesterday I let my laptop (a Dell Inspiron running Windows 7) hibernate at the end of the day.  Before hibernating, it brought up that window that says something to the effect of "a program still needs to close etc." - although it then seemed to hibernate anyway without a problem.  Today, when I turned my laptop back on, it went right to my desktop immediately (without the "Resuming Windows" loading screen) - and the "a program still needs to close" window was still there.  I clicked "Cancel", and everything then seemed pretty normal.  I found this start-up unusual, though, and went to restart my laptop so it could boot up cleanly.  The Restart button did absolutely nothing.  Neither did Shut Down or Sleep.  My laptop would not respond to Ctrl+Shift+Escape or Ctrl+Alt+Delete either.  The only button under the Shut Down menu that worked was Hibernate.

I accessed the internet and looked up the problem; I found a few places suggesting to open task manager (which I did by searching for it), and end the processes labeled with my username one by one.  I started to do this, making sure to end only those labeled with my username.  As I did this, my Windows Dock disappeared, and so did the taskbar, start button, and everything else - leaving me with a blank desktop: no icons or anything, just my wallpaper.  I sort of freaked out and closed task manager - only to realize I had no way to open it up again.  My laptop is still stuck in this state.  It will hibernate if I press the power button, and will do its "Resuming Windows" deal normally if turned back on - but of course, it only loads my "blank desktop" again.

What can I do to fix this?  I was thinking of booting my laptop in safe mode, but I have never done that before, and I have no idea if it's the correct thing to do.  I would greatly appreciate any help.

[Fed]

I'd reboot it in normal mode.

[C.M.]

I'd reboot it in normal mode.

Thank you for the reply.  Sorry for being terribly ignorant, but how would I do this?  Is it an option under F2 Startup Options (I think?) when Windows is starting up?
I'm rather afraid to touch anything for fear of making things worse, so slightly more detailed instruction would be lovely.

[Fed]

I'll say up front I'm not into laptops but I'd hold my finger on the power/off button until it switched off then just turn it on like you normally would.
You won't damage it.

[C.M.]

I'll say up front I'm not into laptops but I'd hold my finger on the power/off button until it switched off then just turn it on like you normally would.
You won't damage it.

Alright; I shall take your word for it and see if that works.   

[Fed]

But wait!

[Fed]

After it reboots you will then have to find the program that wasn't shutting down properly.

[C.M.]

After it reboots you will then have to find the program that wasn't shutting down properly.

I did as you said and rebooted normally - lo and behold, it worked great!  I'm typing this from my formerly incapacitated laptop right now.
I'm pretty sure the program that didn't shut down was my Windows Live Messenger, as it was the last thing I had open before telling my comp to hibernate.  Do I need to do anything with it?

[Fed]

I wouldn't worry about it unless it start doing it again.

[C.M.]

Ok.  It was an odd little thing to have happen, but I'll keep in mind the simple solution if it does happen again, without panicking and trying to find quick fixes like that task manager thing online.  I guess I could've just rebooted it from the start, but I wasn't sure whether that would hurt my laptop.  Better safe than sorry, I guess!

Thank you so much for the help, Fed.