Hi guys here is a real curvy one for you...

A few days ago my Vista started displaying a very strange error. Whenever I boot up the following happens.

1. I get to welcome screen
2. Vista starts loading as normal
3. Black screen with only "My Documents" folder shows.
4. Regardless if I close the folder or not, Vista will continue to load in the background (mouse cursor and keyboard available and I can see the HDD loading) but it will not start "Explorer" and I am left with a black screen.
5. If I use CTRL ALT DEL it will let me go to task manager and start it manually, but obviously this is not ideal.

The only system changes that I have done are:

1. Uninstalled Vistabootpro (never used it for dual booting, Only ever used Vista to boot)
2. Installed updates for Nero Burning
3. Installed Spybot Search and Destroy and deleted a few adware etc.

Now since this I have uninstalled Nero totally, upgraded to Vista Ultimate to see if that sorted the issue but it hasnt also tried to use system restore and go to an earlier point and that has not helped either.

Also for some reason, my Vista Ultimate does not have the "Repair Vista" option when I start it from disc, so I cannot seem to correct the boot from that.

Any ideas as how to solve this will be greatly appriciated!

The NZ-Lander

I have the exact problem. Please reply back if you are able to solve the issue.
Thanks.

I've just repaired two laptops from two different people with this problem. After about 20 hours of work I found no real fix other than to install vista over the old copy or to use the last good restore point.

That sucks so bad, I definitely dont want to do that.. Anyone here work at MS and want to crack this one for us?

Might suddenly see an outbreak of this problem and re-install sucks...

I have not solved my issue yet either,I have tried installing absolutestartup to see if there was an issue reinstalled vistabootpro did nothing, reinstalled the original boot conf, again, nothing....

I had exactly the same thing happen to me today after installing Azureus and JRE (or whatever it's called)...

Only solution I could find was to restore to last good restore point.

Paul

i am havin the exact same problem and am starting explorer manually.i want to reinstall xp back over it becuase vista is not worht the hassle.all i want is a working os.my problem now is my dvd drive is not showing up in explorer and i also cant boot from a disc at startup.i cant find a driver for my dvd drive.it worked two days ago on vista drivers.help

Dell Inspiron 1501,
512 ram,
DVD/CD Rom Drive:TSSTcorp DVD+-RW TS-L632d

My E-mail is dean.flashjr@gmail.com

i am having this same problem too! it loads to a black screen with my documents and i have to run explorer.exe to get to my desktop.

my computer came preloaded with vista so i do not even have the disc to reinstall the software, someone help!

Solved !!
Had the same problem, turned out to be infected with Trojan-Backdoor-Prorat-D.
Nasty bugger, but was able to get it out with Webroot spysweeper.
Heres the removal instructions
Backdoor.Prorat - Symantec.com

Twisted Pear
service@twistedpearsystems.com

Originally Posted by Unregistered

i am having this same problem too! it loads to a black screen with my documents and i have to run explorer.exe to get to my desktop. my computer came preloaded with vista so i do not even have the disc to reinstall the software, someone help!

Mate, I know this sounds really gay but I am so happy I could kiss you!!!

You are 100% correct, however in my case the Virus had obviously been deleted but the antivirus had not restored my shell info.

I would recommend everyone follows the steps provided however I only did the last one which was changing the the Shell script to "C:\windows\explorer.exe"

Once again! Thank you so much! Windows not only starts without me manually entering explorer but it does it way quicker too!

I did what you all said and removed my trojan. Before I change the values for the Shell in the registry to what you said, I'll repeat my current values to check if they are like yours:
"Explorer.exe C:\WINDOWS\Config\lsass.exe"
I'm assuming I have to change that to
"Explorer.exe C:\WINDOWS\explorer.exe"

However, I went to the windows directory, found the file, and when I clicked on it a documents window opened up. Does that mean the trojan changed the explorer file to open up to documents? What happens when you click on the explorer.exe file in the windows directory?
Also, I'm not sure the registry items in the Norton database are correct because Vista uses a different registry setup than XP/Me/98, right? (I've noticed that for example this key [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\
Policies\Explorer\Run] doesn't exist!)