Vista Crash, no explorer.exe, no taskmang etc

[LokRobster]

Greetings,

My bro-in-law showed me a problem on his computer, telling me that his laptop is having major problems... I've never seen its equal.

Symptoms:

No desktop - only black screen.
No TaskBar, No Startmenu - pressing the lil "Windows" symbol key does nothing.
ctl-alt-del pulls up the ability to log out, but no Task Manager option.

He uses the computer with a crazy work-around - He hits the 'Media Launcher' button on the laptop, opens a media option program, selects 'Netflix', hits 'Install Netfix' - this opens a browser. He cancels the install and then uses the browser to navigate files by going to gmail, composing a new email, hitting 'attach file'. This allows me to see files on the hard drive, which you can run by rightclicking the file and hitting 'open' [rather than attach lol].
By doing this, he can run WoW and other games, but that's it.

I tried running TaskManager from inside the Windows directory, but an error message states that 'Task Manager' has been disabled by Admin. I tried running explorer.exe and get an error message - it won't run. This is the text of the message.

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: BEX64
Application Name: explorer.exe
Application Version: 6.0.6001.18164
Application Timestamp: 4907e791
Fault Module Name: StackHash_d147
Fault Module Version: 0.0.0.0
Fault Module Timestamp: 00000000
Exception Offset: 00000000000b012e
Exception Code: c0000005
Exception Data: 0000000000000008
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.768.3
Locale ID: 1033
Additional Information 1: d147
Additional Information 2: 50eec017d74ad00e1ac65d0d466b475a
Additional Information 3: 041c
Additional Information 4: c2ce68d5b605ec502a0bf76c7bea52df

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QUESTION: How can I fix this? Apparently there is only 1 User account on this laptop, and it isn't an Administrator? I'm more of a Windows XP guy and this issue is way beyond anything I've encountered. Any direction or advice is appreciated.

Thanks!!

 

[LokRobster]

Weekend post, perhaps some workday readers have some clues for me...

 

[VirtualLarry]

Sounds like malware to me. Might need a re-install.

Edit: Either that, or the HD is giving out.

 

[lxskllr]

Sounds like malware to me. Might need a re-install.

Edit: Either that, or the HD is giving out.

My vote is for malware. Why would TaskManager be disabled? I'd try scanning it with some bootable CDs. Either that, or use a bootable CD to back up the data and reinstall.