Though I am still not certain what the cause . . . I restarted in Safe Mode, logged in as administrator, clicked Start, Run, typed MSCONFIG, clicked OK. Under the General tab, I chose Selective Startup then cleared the checks from Process System.ini, Process WIn.ini and Load Startup Items. On the Service tab, I selected Hide All Microsoft Services' checkbox then disabled everything left standing. Clicked OK then restarted. Though I am still running in the Selective Startup mode at least all of the normally used functions are back. That includes incons, system tray at the bottom and the start button. It will take more work to determine where to go from here yet for the time being I can use the familiar desktop layout rather than "Task Manager".
Thanks and if you have any thoughts as to what might be going on please let me know.
Steve

__________________
Steve
'87 300TD - 132K - Soon 4-Sale
'84 300D Turbo - 122K - Driving
'77 VW Type II - 77K - Restored
'08 250EX Ninja
English Bulldog (Brier) - My best friend. Passed away 12/02/04 while in my arms.

Did you try to run "explorer.exe"?

__________________
Chris
2007 E550 4Matic - 61,000 Km - Iridium Silver, black leather, Sport package, Premium 2 package
2007 GL450 4Matic - 62,000 Km - Obsidian Black Metallic, black leather, all options
1998 E430 - sold
1989 300E - 333,000 Km - sold
1977 280E - sold
1971 250 - retired

"And a frign hat. They gave me a hat at the annual benefits meeting. I said. how does this benefit me. I dont have anything from the company.. So they gave me a hat." - TheDon

Yes. Sorry I hadn't included that in my prior . . . I followed your directions to the letter and nothing happened/changed. So then I decided you may have meant for me to use c:\explorer.exe so I tried that. Next, c:\windows\explorer.exe and nothing. At those times I was already running in c:\windows\iexplorer.exe so I didn't know if they were sort of the same or if the one you were telling me to do was the "explorer" I use to move things around. Keep it coming if there is more. I am not very experienced with these OS issues so I really follow letter by letter what I am told.
Steve

__________________
Steve
'87 300TD - 132K - Soon 4-Sale
'84 300D Turbo - 122K - Driving
'77 VW Type II - 77K - Restored
'08 250EX Ninja
English Bulldog (Brier) - My best friend. Passed away 12/02/04 while in my arms.

Nope, you did it right, it just didn't work.

Afraid I don't have too much more to add. If you are sure that you don't have any viruses/spyware, then you're probably got some corrupted system files. If so, in the long run the best solution will be to reformat the HDD and reload XP cleanly.

One last thing you could try - bring up My Computer. Right click and select 'Manage'. Select 'System Tools' then 'Event Viewer'. Look at all the logs there - System, Application, etc. See if you have any errors and if so you can post them here. Specifically, see if any relate to 'explorer.exe'.

If not, I'm out of ideas.

__________________
Chris
2007 E550 4Matic - 61,000 Km - Iridium Silver, black leather, Sport package, Premium 2 package
2007 GL450 4Matic - 62,000 Km - Obsidian Black Metallic, black leather, all options
1998 E430 - sold
1989 300E - 333,000 Km - sold
1977 280E - sold
1971 250 - retired

"And a frign hat. They gave me a hat at the annual benefits meeting. I said. how does this benefit me. I dont have anything from the company.. So they gave me a hat." - TheDon

Use the msconfig. and what I would do is start turning on items again one by one and rebooting. when you turn an item on and the system acts up, you will most likely find the culprit . turn that item back off and start turning on the other ones.

This is a long process, with lots of rebooting, but I suspect that the culprit is either a startup item , or a service that is causing the problem.

Alon

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'92 300CE - Sold
2004 C240 - 744 - C7 Wheels - Android Radio
2002 C320 - 816 - Sport Wagon - Sold
2006 E350 Wagon - 368 - Dead
2015 GL350 Bluetec - 197U

Though I have no idea why, STOPzilla turned out to be the one. I did as suggested, adding one item at a time then rebooting. When I selected the above application my problem came back. When I removed it again things worked fine. I uninstalled the program and put my system back in auto. So far, so good. Thanks to all of you for your support with this. I have learned a little more about how the computer works but not so much that I'll venture off the normal path. At least for awhile.
Steve

__________________
Steve
'87 300TD - 132K - Soon 4-Sale
'84 300D Turbo - 122K - Driving
'77 VW Type II - 77K - Restored
'08 250EX Ninja
English Bulldog (Brier) - My best friend. Passed away 12/02/04 while in my arms.