Task bar gone following a power outage

[NoComprende]

The power went out briefly in the middle of the night and when I restarted my computer this morning the windows task bar is completely gone, including the system tray, quick launch, and start button.

When I first turned on the monitor it was at the windows logon screen. I logged on and the task bar was gone, so I restarted. When it was shutting down to restart it gave a message about a serious error that had occured with something that looked like a registry key. I wasn't expecting it and didn't act fast enough to write it down.

If use ctrl-alt-del to bring up the task manager it shows things running under processes.

 

[neovan]

Do you see the "my computer" icon or any other icon on the desktop or is the desktop completely blank as well?

If you still see the desktop icons, you may have dragged your taskbar lower and just have to drag it back up. Click and drag at the bottom of the screen and just drag up, if that's the case.

 

[NoComprende]

No, there isn't anything like that visible on the screen. The wallpaper comes up though and I can see the mouse pointer.

I just tried moving the mouse to all edges and dragging in case in was stuck there, but no luck.

I also tried using the keyboard key beside the Win Key that looks like a menu and nothing happened.

Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[neovan]

have you tried running it in safe mode?

 

[NoComprende]

I just tried safe mode. It had the 'safe mode' in the corners, but nothing else at all. I then restarted and chose 'use last know good configuration.' It is the same as before, no task bar.

I looked under 'processes' in the task mgr and everything else is running that is normally running. But I don't see 'explorer.exe' Is this what makes the task bar run? If it is, does anyone know how I can get it to run at start up?

Thanks.

 

[neovan]

what operating system? win98/2000/xp?

the explorer.exe is your shell so that's what would cause you to see no icons.

can you hit the windows key and "e" to bring up the explorer.exe

 

[NoComprende]

Sorry, it's xp pro.

If I open the task mgr I am able to use the 'new task' button to run 'msconfig' Is this a good place to start looking for what's missing? Can I open anything else with 'new task' that might be helpful?

 

[NoComprende]

Oh yeah, I just tried the windows key + e and it doesn't respond. I really appreciate the suggestion though. This is weird, I can't find anything on MS Help and Support either.

That computer is on a home network and I am able to access its main drive over the network. I can also connect with remote desktop connection, but it doesn't change anything.

 

[neovan]

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try those two links. they might be helpful.

 

[NoComprende]

Thank you very much. Those articles seem to be discussing my exact problem. I have spent the last hour and a half looking for explore.exe on my hd and under run in the registry. I also went to the symantic website which suggests running Norton Anti-virus in safe mode. I haven't been able to find anything or get NAV to run. I have opened every NAV folder and ran everything I could find. I really appreciate you taking the time to find those and I'll post anything out of the ordinary I find if anything comes up.

 

[NoComprende]

I spent most of the evening looking for the virus and haven't found anything. I also ran a virus checker. Is it possible that instead of an addition to my registry, something was taken out?