Comments on: Troubleshoot blank desktop (explorer.exe didn’t start)

By: Rarst

Rarst — Tue, 09 Nov 2010 06:21:27 +0000

@nathan It depends. You may get full installation disc, or recovery disc, or hidden recovery partition on your hard drive, or nothing at all. It is hard to advise on such issues remotely, so I suggest you find some friendly computer techie offline to take a look at your computer.

By: nathan

nathan — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 21:00:34 +0000

yeh i checked virus history and it had infected the explorer file, which then my anti virus deleted! Thanks for helping me find out what it was! Do you get an installation cd when you buy a computer?

By: Rarst

Rarst — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 19:59:44 +0000

@nathan Most likely malware had ruined explorer.exe completely and it was erased rather than recovered. Basically you need fresh copy of file. If you have access to computer with same (or at least roughly same) version of Windows you can try to copy it from there. If you have Windows installation disc (again - same or roughly same) you can extract clean copy of explorer.exe from there. Also try System File Checker, which is launched from command line and quite good at restoring system files (will need installation disc or copy of one as well).

By: nathan

nathan — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 19:26:20 +0000

Hi i recently removed some viruses off my laptop using spyware doctor and what you described above has happened. I ran task manager and typed in explorer and it couldnt find it! Help please

By: Rarst

Rarst — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 17:51:21 +0000

@Seelenwahnsinn

Reinstall Windows and you learn nothing new. Figure out how to fix something and you can save time on reinstalling Windows next time(s). :)

I know that if you fix PCs for a living it will probably boil down to don’t-think-reinstall. I don’t do such stuff that much so I can take my time to learn and tinker.

By: Seelenwahnsinn

Seelenwahnsinn — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 21:48:15 +0000

As you know, explorer.exe problems are, most of the times, caused by malware. At least for me, every single blank desktop that greeted me was because of it. And though removal tools are effective, sometimes it’s just faster to format the machine than to completely remove malware and fix the broken things it left behind.

Of course in a situation where a program uninstall is to blame, I would pretty much just fix the registry and move on.

About the shortcut… I don’t have much experience with this “intermediary window,” as in most of Windows XP machines it doesn’t happen, and I skipped Windows Vista entirely. But still now that I’m using Win7 as my home computer OS I don’t see this window too much (Process Explorer is my manager of choice). Thanks for the tip, I’ll try to remember about this shortcut next time. :)

By: Rarst

Rarst — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 21:28:58 +0000

@Seelenwahnsinn

Why format for an issue that is often fixed with single registry edit?? :) Major waste of time.

Ctrl+Alt+Del goes to intermediary window from which you can run Task Manager. Ctrl+Shift+Esc just goes to Task Manager directly – handy.

By: Seelenwahnsinn

Seelenwahnsinn — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 15:18:36 +0000

So you bother trying to fix it? I don’t know why, but I tend to always format when I face this kind of situation. Any kind of fix seems to me as a “temporary fix,” and it bothers me to know the system could be better if just reinstalled.

Also.. Ctrl+Shift+Esc? I always opened it by Alt+Ctrl+Del; didn’t even know this shortcut. :)

By: Rarst

Rarst — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 19:09:51 +0000

@Saurabh

Well, I had that just two days ago as described in post. :) It is really common effect or aftermath of malware so I see this quite a bit around.

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