Solved vista starting without explorer.exe, have to run manually from start menu, help!

Hi guys, I'm stuck and need your help, not sure what to do next... Short description of my issue: vista starting without explorer.exe, so have to run explorer.exe manually from the task manager to get start menu and everything running normally.... I am not sure of the right category, because this may be is related to virus, driver and system restore issues, please move in the right section, following is the system configuration and the history: also sorry for the long message, but I am really stuck here and if you could spare some time to look into this issue, I tried to provide as much history and details on the issue not just to help you understand my problem but also as a warning for other users who may run into this issue in the future.. it may be a known issue and I just happen to run into it still I would like to provide details and history of what happened, if you help me I will be in your dept for sure!! and you may ask my help anytime if you need something System configuration: my friend has a toshiba satellite latop, with vista premuim. it can preloaded on the laptop. I am not sure of the exact system model and processor but if it's relevant I can provide that info, but I suspect there is some ASUS components/drivers in the system, later I will explain why I think so, as I said I can provide system model or CPU or hardisk space but at this point I feel it's not relivant, cause it's an issue with explorer.exe right now but if you think it's required I will ask for that info, please understand I am giving support over seas from this user but we are in touch via msn and phone so if you want any additional info, even screen shots I will try to provide. History: the Problem started when she called me, and showed me a screen shot of AVG anti-virus free edition trying to remove some virususes off her computer. she said the virus came from a USB driver she borrowed from a friend. and AVG was complaining that it is not able to remove the virus because she has to buy the full AVG version. this sounded wierd, I tried to verify she is using the free AVG but I am not sure, so I ask her to uninstall AVG and try another anti-virus, first thing came to mind is avast, so I asked her to install the latest free version I think it's 4.8, but it turns out it's not compatabile with vista or her system and after some searching on the net I discover a known issue with avast/vista conflicting with some asus drivers and I suspect it is the same case, because she is also like the others reported, getting a blank screen and not able to logon. but before uninstalling avast from safe mode, I tried another suggestion ( I was not aware that avast was responsible at that point in time yet ) so I suggested she try last known good configuration. did that, but still she got blank screen again ( because avast was still there ) so I suggested she go to safe mode and try to uninstall avast ( this is after I found the issue with avast conflicing with asus drivers on some machines with vista ), after going into safe mode, she gets a view of her documents and no start button, after some questions on the phone I figured out that explorer.exe is not running, so asked her to try to run explorer.exe from the task manager, when she did that she got the start button, and was able to goto control panel and uninstall avast and then she rebooted vista. after reboot she was able to go into vista, but explorer.exe again won't run, unless she goto task manager and run it manualy everytime she reboots. I thought I'd do some research why is explorer.exe not running when the system is restarting, I thought maybe I could add it to the system startup or something, but not sure where would be the best place do to that, msconfig? or startup folder for that user? if someone can give me some advice that would be great. she already backed up her files now and ready for a re-format but I am really embarased would like to find a solution to this problem anyway, as now she think I might be an idiot for my poor selection of antivurs software, It's strange I never heard of this compatability issues and I installed avast on vista on other toshiba latops and many systems and I never had this issue ever, I suggested she try another anti-virus but she is afraid now and wants to re-format... and take her time which I understand, but in the mean time I want to try and fix this explorer.exe not runing, so if someone could please provide me with a good solution or if you have some tips I would be glad for any help, thank you !!

Hi Mike

Try doing from your recovery partition or recovery DVD.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/76905-system-restore-how.html


Long posts are hard to read.

theog said:

Hi Mike

Try doing from your recovery partition or recovery DVD.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/76905-system-restore-how.html


Long posts are hard to read.

Click to expand...

yes they are... already tried that but it says there is no system restore available. after googling for many hours, I found a solution to edit the registery, there is a parameter called shell that should have the value "explorer.exe" in it, and if there is anything else it is recommended to remove that, and when we checked the value it was something like this "explorer.exe rundll32.* * * * " so I suggested to her to just have "explorer.exe" as recommended by microsoft, and it was also recommended to do that registery edit in safe mode just in case of any curroption, as a result her PC now boots into vista normally and she can access the start menu and internet and everything, so the explorer.exe problem is gone now thank god. but this there is the question , what happened and why did it happen? I still suspect there is a virus that could have taken over the explorer.exe or something, I am not that knowlegable to find out what exactly happened, but this is what I suspect, and I recommended either a clean install to her or try and install an alternative anti-virus other than avast, or other clean up toosls, but she decided to go with the clean install option and just start fresh, she is intrested to try windows 7 anyway, so someone will come and do that for her so the issue is resolved now from my side, and thanks for your suggestion anyway. if someone need more details on how what I did to fix this explorer.exe thing in regedit I can post a link to where I read the information, if that would help someone.

Sounds very strange I'm glad you found the fix I would run the anti-virus just in case.It sounds to me like it was Windows 7 maybe ? I wait at least a year before I touch a new OS.I have zero patience for BS.

blue75 said:

Sounds very strange I'm glad you found the fix I would run the anti-virus just in case.It sounds to me like it was Windows 7 maybe ? I wait at least a year before I touch a new OS.I have zero patience for BS.

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actually windows 7 has nothing to do with this, I was just saying she wants to move to windows 7 soon, but right now she has the vista that came pre-loaded on her PC. and me and her brother and his wife have moved to windows 7 long ago, for me since beta 7022 and now after many months of testing, I really do not see any issues with windows 7, even the 64-bit version, except if you want to run some sensative legacy stuff, for instance I am now working on oracle 10g which is not supported on windows 7, and I just use dual boot to switch to XP to work on oracle 10g, and use windows 7 for everything else. I see no show-stopers with windows 7 at the moment, and it uses much less RAM than vista, vista isn't a bad OS just it really hogs the RAM, it was not designed to run for PCs with 1GB or less, you need at least 1.5GB to have it run decently after adding all your applications and using it for a few months. even my friend who has a 3GB laptopm from toshiba (Satellite Pro) with really good specs, vista gets stuck more than 5 min sometimes just on the welcome screen right after logon, and now that he moved to windows 7, and after adding all apps, startup and shutdown is at least 5 times faster, and all his applications have been migrated safely and not even 1 driver issue, I just had to use the vista utulity the camera to make it available on windows 7 as there is no spesific windows 7 version. I think windows 7 is going to be a success. and no I do not work for microsoft, I was actually ant-microsoft until I tried windows 7, and now I am starting to respect them again, I am an ex-IBMer so I hope that explains why, lol. anyway have a nice day everyone!