Cheat Engine

Zacky

Hey guys,

I've just reformatted my computer from Windows Vista to Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit, and I can't get Explorer.exe running. All I see is the desktop theme (the windows logo with a blue background). When I hit Ctrl+Alt+Dlt, I can hear it go into that mode where you choose to "Switch Accounts", "Log off", "Task Manager", etc. but the screen is completely blank.

I've been looking into this, and it seems as if the only people that get this problem are the ones that have Nvidia video cards, as I do. I know it's the video card causing this problem because when I disable it in Safe Mode and reboot into normal mode, the desktop appears perfectly.

Here's what I've tried:

1) Went into safe mode
2) Disabled the video card, restarted computer
3) Went back into normal mode to update the Nvidia video card
4) Restarted
5) Computer reaches desktop, but explorer.exe hasn't started, so no icons, start menu, etc. can be seen

I've also tried going into the registry to do this:

Go to the following in the registry editor:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon.

Saifallofjmr · Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 4:01 am Post subject:

Try doing a clean reformat/install.

Zacky · Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 8:06 am Post subject:

lucidity · Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 10:47 am Post subject:

To simply say it doesn't start does not give us any information.

If you press CTRL+SHIFT+ESCAPE and go to File -> New Task (Run...) -> explorer.exe what happens?

If you're able to launch explorer successfully, check your Windows logs and post any system errors here.

If you aren't able to launch explorer:

What happens when you try to boot safe mode?
What happens if you don't install the video driver after reinstalling?
Do you have another video card you can try?

I've never heard of this problem and I believe the drivers are loaded *prior* to explorer loading, so I think your problem might be related to something else.

AhMunRa · Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 11:32 am Post subject:

@OP 5th response on the link you posted to the MS site points the finger at Panda AV, are you running anti-virus? Is your copy of Windows 7 legit? If it's not try going into Safe Mode, you mentioned you could boot into it. Do an MD5 checksum on your version of Explorer make sure it matches a valid MD5 checksum of the version of Explorer for the Windows Version you have. This will eliminate that Explorer has been tampered with. If your copy is legit, ignore that step.

You also mentioned this was a fresh install from Vista. Did you backup your original data to an external harddrive? If so is this drive connected? I've seen instances where when you have a personal directory on external media it can cause crashes like this. If say the first time you ran your setup and all was fine then you mapped your docs folder to x:\My Docs, and the drive X switches to another drive letter it will cause Explorer to panic since it can no longer find the user folder.

You could also try to create a new User Account.

I could not really find any correlation between this issue and nVidia. Seems more like a borked install. If all steps fail since this is a new installation, follow Saifallofjmr's advice and do a clean install.

ZacTheSin · Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2011 6:06 pm Post subject:

Wait, you did a clean install and it still does it?

Hardware?

Saifallofjmr · Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2011 3:13 pm Post subject:

He said "clean install from vista" AKA upgrade.

ZacTheSin · Posted: Tue Jun 21, 2011 4:03 pm Post subject:

That isn't a clean install.
It's called an in-place upgrade.

Honestly, upgrading from vista is more trouble then it's worth.

Get a backup of your hard drive, then do a clean install. It'll guaranteed to fix your issues. That is unless there isn't actually a hardware problem.

Zacky · Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2011 12:08 am Post subject:

agh, thanks for all your replies guys!! I really appreciate it!
It's just that I have a mound of work that I need to complete before Friday, and I'm not even close finishing.

I'm going to try everything you guys suggested as soon as I'm done. Thanks again guys. I'm really glad you're all willing to help :]

Zacky · Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2011 7:24 pm Post subject:

Hey guys,

Okay, I did what some of you suggested.

1) I did a clean install again, just to be on the safe side. I reformatted my C:\ drive and installed Windows 7 on it. The same problem comes up.

2) I looked for updates for my computer here:
http://support.acer.com/us/en/product/default.aspx?tab=1&modelId=356
My computer is an Acer Aspire M5100. Nothing seems to be there.

3) I've tried doing the:
Ctrl+Shift+Esc -> File -> New Task -> Run -> explorer.exe
But I can't even get into Task Manager. Nothing pops up when I press those keys.

Also, I should probably tell you guys one more thing:
After I did the clean install, the desktop was completely black. Nothing was appearing other than my mouse, which I was able to move. So I went into "Safe mode with networking" (I am able to go into safe mode for some reason), went onto nVidia's site and downloaded the latest driver for my video card. After that, I restarted the computer, and when it got to the desktop, it was no longer a black screen. The desktop background appeared (blue background with windows logo in the middle), but nothing else. However, I was able to right-click, and those options came up (View, Sort By, Refresh, New, Personalize, Gadgets, etc.).

So I clicked on New, and created a folder. It appeared on the desktop. Does this mean anything? I was able to drag it around and open it too, but when I dragged it out of bounds (past the edge of the desktop), the computer froze.

While I was in that folder, I went to my Sys32 files and tried to start Task Manager from there. I double-clicked it, but nothing happened.

Since I was able to get into my folders, does that mean explorer.exe is working properly?

I don't know what I can do now...

Haswell · Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2011 8:17 pm Post subject:

Was your "clean install" done form the OEM disc, or from a vanilla copy of Win7?

But yeah, I'm suspecting hardware issues as well. Extreme thermal throttling or dying HDD?

kls85 · Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2011 8:21 pm Post subject:

Acer like all OEM should have a recovery partition where it lets you reinstall back to factory defaults. You try that yet?

Zacky · Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2011 8:49 pm Post subject:

AhMunRa · Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 8:39 am Post subject:

If you can create a folder via right click then move it out of desktop bounds, then yeah Explorer is working.

You mentioned it's an Acer, did you install any of the software that Acer bundles with computers?

Zacky · Posted: Mon Jun 27, 2011 10:43 am Post subject: