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Explorer.exe not loading

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N1NJA

Member
Joined
Dec 28, 2005
Location
Michigan
When you start up the computer explorer.exe is suppose to load riht, becasue it's the start bar and icons and all that? Well it refuses to run on startup on my mom's computer. Why and how do I fix it?
 
Are you sure it's not running? Check the processes in task manager to see if it is or not.

It could be the result of a virus, or something else. Do the virus/spyware scans in safe mode.
 
Yes I am sure it is not running, I must go in an manually run it each startup. There are alos no virii on it after a quick scan, not suprising since it's had XP on it for a whole 2 days. I did notice that itr happened for the first time after she downloaded the Zone Alarm firewall, and when the computer was rebooted after installation, it didn't and hasn't loaded since.
 
The shell is determined by two registry keys mainly: machine default, and a user specific setting

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersionWinlogon\Shell
and
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersionWinlogon\Shell

Setting "explorer.exe" in both if existing (HKCU might not exist then you can simply ignore it) and explorer.exe will be loaded on startup.
Autoruns from sysinternals.com should also be able to set it.
 
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