I hope someone can help. Windows boots fine, no errors found and I hear the speakers make that sound when the computer is ready (the one that usually sounds just before the icons start showing up on the monitor). I see the Start Button flash then disappear and then all I see are my wallpaper, and my mouse arrow (which I can move around) but thats it! If I hit Ctrl-Alt-Del, it shows no programs running. I cant remember how but I was able to get it to boot in safe mode but still same issue. The last thing I did before this problem occured was install a driver for a digital camera that was plugged into my usb port. It allowed me to view and save some pictures I took. When I closed the viewer, the computer had froze. After rebooting, I have been having the problem. No Icons or trays or Start Button so I cannot even go in and remove any faulty drivers and camera software that I installed that caused this. Can anyone please help me? Any responses or leads to a fix is very much appreciated. I dont know much about computers so if you know some things to try, please detail it for me. It is a Gateway computer. Upon loading, I think the only thing I have access to is [F1] which brings me to some settings but I didnt see anything that I thought could help me. Thanks for listening!!

HI you likely need to boot to dos "use boot floppy can get one at www.bootdisk.com" and at a: prompt type in "scanreg/restore" press enter and select a date before loading camera software, will look like this. your mistake was to have camera pluged in when updating driver i think.

Thanks for the reply...I tried this already and it did not fix the problem. I saw this question in two past posts but no solution that worked. Any other suggestions?

Can you right click on the desktop to bring up a properties box?

Unfortunately nothing comes up when I right click on the mouse. I have already tried safemode which doesnt work. I went into DOS and tried other fixes such as scanreg/restore, scanreg/fix, sys c:, deleting temp files, copied explorer.exe from another computer onto my PC, and now 8 hours later....have even tried reinstalling windows 98. After reinstalling windows 98 it tells me before the blank screen: Explorer: This program has performed an illegal operationa dn will be shut down. When I click on details, it shows: Explorer caused an invalid page fault in module EXPLORER.exe at 0177:00401f31 It goes on with many other numbers. A 2nd error message also shows up: C:\Windows\System\Zonelabs\VSMON.exe Validation failed for C:Windows\System\VSUTIL.DLL When I close those two pop ups, then I return to the wallpaper with no icons. Also appearing after W98 reinstall, if I try to log in safemode now, I get a System File Error: The following system files have been replaced with older versions by a program you recently ran. These programs are currently in use and cannot be automatically repaired. Windows may not run correctly until you exit and restart Windows so that these files can be automatically repaired. C:\Windows\System\DDEML.DLL (click OK then another box appears) System File Warning: The following system files have been replaced with older versions by a program you recently ran. Some Windows functionality may not run correctly with these files installed. Please restore these files by running Windows Set-up located on your original Windows disks to verif your current installation. C:\Windows\System\mcicda.drv and C:\Windows\System\WINASPI.DLL Now I dont recall what version of Win98 I had on my computer or if that had anything to do with it...I do know the Win98 disk I used to reinstall was the first version that came out (and was unopened by me).

I just spent 6 hours fighting this same issue on my sister-in-law's 98SE machine, and gave up for the day. I just found a Microsoft Knowledge base article, 183479, that references this issue. I can't try it (machine is now about 50 miles away), but it may work for both of us. Good luck.

hey. I have almost the exact same problem, exept mine occured after i uninstalled a different program (MAME ... a game emulator). My computer froze after i uninstalled, then i restarted the computer and i got the "explorer caused an invalid page fault in module explorer.exe at ....". When i push control + alt + delete, there are no programs running in that window. If anyone knows how to fix this... plz reply or email . ray_ng@interchange.ubc.ca .