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No taskbar, icons or wallpaper after boot

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Wiresetc
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Posted March 6, 2013 at 7:03PM

Hello all,

A few days ago my old laptop, a Toshiba, was acting slow, so I decided to try and improve its speed. I used CCleaner with standard settings and disabled some of the meaningless services and start-up programs in MSConfig.

After the reboot after cleaning, random programs stopped working. I got lots of svchost.exe errors when I tried to turn off my laptop. The next morning when I started Vista, there was no taskbar, icons or wallpaper. Just a black screen with one explorer opened. Right-clicking on the desktop was also disabled.

The first thing I did was try to open programs. IE, Opera, Media Player and all other things were still working. I searched the internet for solutions.

I tried the following things already: - Ctrl+Esc to see if Auto-Hide is enabled. - Ctrl+Shift+Esc, stop the explorer process and restart using the Run option. - Entering safe-mode (it was exactly the same as a normal boot). - Creating a different account. - Disable all services and start-up programs, leaving only the necessary hardware drivers. - Scanning for malware using AVG, Avira, McAfee and Malwarebytes. - System recovery to previous state.

None of the things above solved my problem. Every time I restart my laptop, the wallpaper which I have set will be reset to a black screen. My Vista is a Home Premium 32bit SP1. There is more info about my laptop on my profile if anyone needs it.

Thank you for helping in advance.

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difarn

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Posted March 7, 2013 at 7:18AM

You may have been a bit over-zealous in the clean-out. You could try a system restore to an earlier point.

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Wiresetc

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Posted March 7, 2013 at 8:47AM

System restore is in the list of things I tried already. I get this error Volume Shadow Copy Service does not work (0x81000202). If anyone knows how to fix this error, that would be fine too.

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Ex plorer

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Posted March 7, 2013 at 10:16AM

Have you gone back into MSConfig and re-ticked start ups you removed a bit of long shot but its worth a try.

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Ex plorer

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Posted March 7, 2013 at 11:06AM

You can also do a registry repair in Ccleaner have a look at that, I think you will also get the option to back up the registry before you do a repair as well.

When you tried a system restore did you try it through Accessories, System Tools, System Restore, or through Vista Maintenance. From start.

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Wiresetc

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Posted March 7, 2013 at 6:29PM

I have restored the registry with CCleaner and looked for a system restore point. There appear to be no restore points at all, which means I might not be able to go back to an older state even if the error in my previous comment was fixed. Anyway, I tried to restore my system by going to Control Panel->System->System Protection. After that I get the Shadow Copy error.

In MSConfig I have tried check marking all the start-programs. Unfortunately, there were no changes considering the taskbar and wallpaper.

There is a possibility that it is a virus, but I already tried McAfee, AVG, Avira and Malwarebytes. Not sure if that is enough.

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difarn

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Posted March 9, 2013 at 9:07AM

Have a look at this article about the shadow copy error and how to rectify it - have you tried all of these?

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Ex plorer

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Posted March 9, 2013 at 3:38PM

Take a look here in Windows there is a lot of advice you need to scroll down a little, hope this helps.

Off Topic.

Seems like a lot of AVs running I use one, Microsoft Security Essentials only its free. I don't think it will run with McAfee, maybe to many AVs on one PC although this may not be the cause of your problem I would choose one and stick with Malwarebytes.

McAfee safe search will run with MSE.

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Wiresetc

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Posted March 9, 2013 at 7:03PM

Thanks difarn and Explorer. The Shadow Copy Error is gone, but the service has not been used for quite a while, which means I have no restore points from before the taskbar disappeared.

I don't think the AVs are the cause. AVG was my standard scanner before the taskbar problem. I installed McAfee, Avira and Malwarebytes after that. Now I have AVG back again as my only scanner, just because no threads were found by the other scanners.

I'm thinking of re-installing Vista. It does not take that much time and the laptop will be clean again. Might be the easiest solution as well.

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difarn

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Posted March 9, 2013 at 8:42PM

I think a re-install may be the best solution too. Good luck

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Wiresetc

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Posted March 17, 2013 at 6:48PM

The problem is solved now. I found and used the recovery disc from my laptop to reinstall Vista and all the drivers. My taskbar, icons and wallpaper are back and the laptop is clean again. Thanks for the help, everyone.

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