Only the background shows up!

[Timothy H.]

Nothing is showing up anymore. When I reboot the computer, after it loads my personal settings, nothing comes up but the background. No desk top, start button, tool bar, date or time. Nothing. I can get the task manager to open and go to run new task...browse...and access the desk top and open things like internet explorer and they work fine once I open them. I have run ad-aware and microsoft antispyware beta and they show everything is clean. I have also tried starting in safe mode and running the antispyware and restoring the computer to an earlier date when it was fine but still nothing. Any suggestions? I have XP home edition if that helps.

[Raptor]

Try the following:

1. Before Windows XP loads, press F8
2. Select last known good configuration

[Timothy H.]

I tried what you said, yet the same thing happened.

[pcdoc4christ]

... I can get the task manager to open and go to run new task...browse...and access the desk top and open things like internet explorer and they work fine once I open them. ...I have also tried starting in safe mode and running the antispyware and restoring the computer to an earlier date when it was fine but still nothing. Any suggestions? ...

Safe Mode, Last Known Good, System Restore--looks like you've done all you can without reinstalling the operating system.  That's what i'd suggest:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/tips/doug92.mspx

One word of caution:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/312369

Hope it works out for you!
Doc

[Fed]

I have run ad-aware and microsoft antispyware beta and they show everything is clean.

Have you also checked for viruses?
If I suspected I had a problem I'd install, update & run the following programs.
First as a quick check because it's updated continually.
Free online scan at Panda.
http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/com/activescan_principal.htm
Then...
AVG, Ewido, Msoft Anti-spyware, Adaware, Spybot S&D,
and finally get a Hijackthis analysis.
Only then would I be reasonably convinced my computer was clean.

[pcdoc4christ]

Good advice, FED!

[Kevin Bonise]

I had this same problem when I reinstalled XP on my system (which I like to do from time to time just to clean things up). Problem is when you do that you hand over a part of your hard drive to a file folder called "My Old Disk Structure", which can't be deleted. I discovered this after I attempted to delete it file by file from the DOS prompt; next time I rebooted, the desktop was there but the icons were nowhere to be seen. I ultimately had to reinstall the OS yet again to get them back. I never did find out what actually caused this to happen.