Where did everything go? Windows explorer error, help!

[chaozie3]

Ok, i'm not sure what happened but I have an HP pavilion zt3000. Just tonight the computer froze and so I held down the power button to restart it. Upon restarting, windows begins to start up and the wallpaper is visible but no icons, start bar, anything, Just a big gray error message that say, windows explorer has encountered a problem...same old same old. After clicking any of the 3 options at the bottom, debug, send, don't send, nothing happens! The screen just sits there with the wallpaper and the mouse icon (which does move). I can't access anything, any thoughts? Thanks in advance!

[Coreper]

you cant see the menu bar right?

try this then:

press CTRL+ALT+DEL {which opens Windows Task Manager} > New Task > type "explorer" > now everything should appear quite soon

i hope this solves it

the error probably occures because something has happened to your explorer.exe file

{i had this problem to: some things in my explorer disapeared, so i replaced it with a explorer.exe file from another pc > this caused much explorer.exe errors > so i changed back to my old version {i used the backup from Xpize} and everything worked again}

[cozofdeath]

Also, if your getting this at every startup its a pretty major problem. By following Corepers suggestion can you bring Windows up? You will probably also want to run the system file checker. This can also be done from the task manager if you can't bring up explorer. New Task > type cmd > type sfc /scannow. If that doesn't work try logging into safe mode and a different user account and see if you still get the error.