Win 7 loads to desktop wallpaper but no icons and no taskbar appear.

[Pooty]

Ctrl+Alt+Delete leads to black screen with cursor, no task manager. Safe Mode loads correctly but Restore to previous point fails. The problem seemed to come out of nowhere, in that i didn't add any new hardware.

What I'v tried:
Startup repair.
System Restore
Last Known good Configuration
Clean Boot

Ok so i just re installed win7, all went fine. i got to the download all drivers and other junk part, and catalyst ver: 2012.1219.1520.27485 required a restart. once it restarted i was right back where i started. loads to desktop with no taskbar or icons and alt-crtl-del just gives a back screen. unfortunately i dont know what install caused it, because a lot of things were updating and installing.

 

[Pooty]

oh and some other things i'v noticed
The starting Windows page lasts a long time. as in a minute or so. after that it goes to a black screen for 30secs or so then loads to the desktop background page.
new issues: my keyboard is backlit, during booting its lights flicker rapidly and i cant press any buttons to launch safe mode ext. It also doesnt power down when the pc does, it remains lit. I changed the keyboard over to a basic one. but im still having the issue of not having use of it untill after windows have loaded.

 

[redduc900]

What are your complete system spec's in detail, and is the system overclocked?

 

[Pooty]

hey
Phenom x4 965
Radeon 6950
16g ram corsair @ 1.6
asrock 970 eXtreame4

no overclocking, other than the 6970 shaders.

also after leaving the pc for the last few days, its started up fine this morning

 

[DanFraser]

When at the 'desktop' try pressing ctrl shift esc to directly open the task manager.

If that works then run explorer.exe