XP Pro crashes - terminates explorer.exe shortly after startup

[Samolyet 0]

Hello fellow PC aficionados!

 

I just built up a budget home system for the significant other...

 

Gigabyte K8NS Socket 754, AMD 3000+ Sempron

GeForce 6200 AGP 8x 256MB

SoundBlaster Audigy ZS

Lucent QuadraBus 4 port USB controller

Saitek X45 flight controller

Seagate 160GB Ultra ATA 100 HD

DDR 400 1 GB DIMM

 

BIOS setup was pretty straightforward, disabled AC97 on-board sound for the Sound Blaster. No on-board video, so GeForce went right in. It's running off of a 430W power supply.

 

Bought the Windows XP Pro SP2 under a licensing agreement from the University... and then I installed the Yahoo! DSL software so it could talk with the DSL modem in the house. Upon reboot... icons come up, apps load.. and then icons and taskbar disappear. Explorer.exe isn't on the list of processes running. Trying to "Run..." it doesn't work via the Task Manager - which I still have access to, however.

 

Norton Antivirus 2006 and SpySweeper are on, as well as Windows FireWall. Also tried it without SpySweeper just in case the two weren't compatible... still no joy in Mudville.

 

This sux. And I KNOW it's got to be due to something obvious to someone else that I'm doing wrong... all the software on it was compatible with my P.O.S. old HP Pavilion running XP Home SP2.

 

Memory stick is good, wore my ESD strap when installing it grounded to the chassis...

 

I have all the IRQs on the PCI slots set to auto... BIOS detected processor and hard drive just fine as well as RAM type.

 

It crashed similarly with my trusty old Radeon 9000 Pro installed... which was a 2x/4x card. Suspecting it as the culprit, I switched to the GeForce, slapping my head thinking that the nVidia nForce3 250 chipset wasn't compatible with an ATI card... but still the same results.

 

I are stumped. ;-) Any help is appreciated fellas.

[Relic 0]

I see you edited and ended up dbbl-posting, no biggie, no chew-out for asking twice, done it myself.

 

So, I've had the same prob, at different times, for different reasons, usually when crashing out of a game when I've had my vidcard/CPU OC'ed to far, I lose the icons when I crash to the desktop. Upon reboot, they're still not there.

 

If you're "right-click" is still working on your mouse at this point(no icons on bootup), right click your desktop, then go to "arrange icons by", and make sure "show desktop icons" is checked off. If it is, uncheck it, then open the menu again, check it, then reboot.

 

If that doesn't work, try it in safe mode.

 

Call it a "Murphy's Law" glitch, but sometimes, she-ite happens. Hope that fixes you up.

[theefool 0]

Hrrrmmm....

 

Are you saying there is no icons on the desktop, what about the start button (taskbar). Is it there?

 

A note about SBC/Yahoo DSL. There is NO NEED to install that stuff, IF you have a router. From the few installs that I have done, I throw away the sbc cd and just go as is. That yahoo junk reminds me of AOL sometimes....

[Samolyet 0]

No icons - no start bar... right-click unfortunately doesn't work either.

 

I primarily as of now suspect the Windows XP CD I got from the University as either being scratched or a glitch there...

 

Perhaps XP Pro's networking has more advanced options that I'm unaware of and setting incorrectly... either way I'm planning on going to XP Home - I've read Pro's supposed to be faster, but the older compy was running Home and never crashed.

 

('S what I get for falling out of the computer community after the 486's came out, and rejoining at Windows 2000 era)

[Wilhelmus 1]

Try this little app:

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/taskbarplus!.htm

[Relic 0]

Do you have the same prob when you bootup in safe mode?

 

You can always try a repair install of XP, that's the SECOND time the "Repair" option comes up when you install XP. All other files will remain on your computer, but the Windows files will be replaced.

 

Another question, was this a fresh/clean install, or an upgrade to an existing XP installation?