re: Question about 'My Taskbar has disappeared - how do I get it back?'
Saturday, January 2, 2010 at 1:20 am
Windows XP Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by JGF
(1 messages posted)
Was online this afternoon when the screen went black and XP spontaneously rebooted
- to the blue screen with "windows has been stopped to prevent damage to your computer....
If this is the first time you've seen this message... etc."
A couple more tries and it booted to windows - with just my cursor and the wallpaper,
no taskbar or icons. Tried the three finger salute and got the message window: "Task
manager has been disabled by the administrator". I'M THE ADMINISTRATOR!!! and I never
disabled task manager.
Tried a couple more times and it would boot to the logon screen, sit there for about
five seconds, then reboot.
Tried again, hit F8, "last known good". Still boots to the wallpaper andcursor, except
now there's a command prompt window open with an error window over it:
16bit MS-DOS subsystem
C:\windows\system32\winlogon86.exe
SYSTEM \CurrentControlSet\Control\VirtualDeviceDrivers.
Virtual Device Driver format in the registry is invalid.
Choose close to terminate the application.
Clicking 'close' gets rid of the error window and the command prompt window, leaving
me with the wallpaper and cursor.
Tried rebooting in safe mode and got the same thing, except with a black background
instead of my wallpaper.
Went into BIOS and set first boot device to CD, rummaged for half an hour for my
XP CD, inserted it and rebooted again. Restart took ages and booted to the wallpaper
and cursor with no taskbar or icons ...and still telling me the administrator has
disabled trask manager. But no more manure about the 16bit subsystem.
CNTRL+ESC does nothing, nor does the windows key. Keyboard lights will activate
for numlock and caps lock, but CNTRL+ALT+DEL is the only keyboard command which gets
me any response.
I'm thinking the system was hit by a virus, but how can I regain control at this
point? Or must I lug this wretch to the shop?
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 |  |  | re: Question about 'My Taskbar has disappeared - how do I get it back?' (JGF: Sat, Jan 2, 2010, 1:20 am) |
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