About two weeks ago I started having problems with my desktop machine, after a week or so I diagnosed it as the power supply. Prior to my diagnosis I began having a problem where the pc would boot to the wallpaper only. I since replaced the power supply and that solved the initial problem (freezes or going into hibernation mode or shutting down randomly). However when i boot up now, I get only wallpaper, no icons or taskbar, when I ctrl alt delete I find the following in the close program box Bcmdnmsg Msgsrv32(Not responding) Cmdinst occasionally, when I close Msgrv32 the machine suddenly boots up fine. most of the time though, I wind up restarting. I can boot into safemode ok and have a startup disk for dos mode. I have tried reg restore (did not help) and also tried a restore point which only screwed up my Norton anti-virus program. Prior to the restore point fiasco I did run a full virus scan (also used housecall) and ran both spybot sd and adaware...... Not sure whats wrong, If at all possible I do not want to re-install windows. Thanks in advance for any Help, I am at my wits end!

When you see "Cmdinst" left running on a startup, it means something has gone wrong (hung) in the Plug and Play configuration of your system during the boot process. This can often be caused by a hardware failure. Or a corrupted VXD driver for some device. There are ways to isolate this using the BOOTLOG.TXT file. You can do several startups and select the BOOTLOG option instead of Safe Mode. Then restart in Safe Mode and look at the hidden file C:\BOOTLOG.TXT and look for errors. Usually the last few lines in the file will give you a clue, or comparing with a good BOOTLOG.TXT and seeing what is missing next. Another thing you should do, is boot the system into its CMOS Setup. Locate the Plug and Play and PCI Configuration section and Enable Reset Configuration Data. This will clear the BIOS PnP configuration and allow it to rebuild based on the working hardware. Also, find out what the "Bcmdnmsg" program is all about as it could be corrupted and casuing the problem and hanging the message server program that is trying to report the error message.

jesrf, my 2¢ worth. Maybe "Bcmdnmsg" is a trojan. A trojan and a virus are similar, but not the same. Sometimes an AV won't detect a trojan. Suggest a trojan specific scan. You can find a free,online scan at : http://www.trojanscan.com/trojanscan Maybe??? HTH. Ed in Texas.

First, thanks for your ideas and help. OK, I've tried a few more things including changing the CMOS settings and reviewing the bootlog.txt. I've managed to remove the Bcmdnmsg program by disabling a few devices at startup in the control panel. I believe it referred to a BCM V.90 modem. I can't make heads or tails out of the bootlog file, it shows a lot of true type font files as failures and then says (at the end) [0015333E] Starting Unknown (HTREE\RESERVED\0) [0015333E] Started Unknown (HTREE\RESERVED\0) [00153353] Enumerating Unknown (HTREE\ROOT\0) [00153353] Enumerated Unknown (HTREE\ROOT\0) Now in the close program dialog box I have Msgsrv32 (not responding) Cmdninst Cmdninst Why Cmdninst is listed twice is beyond me, occasionally I see other things in the close dialog box such as: Statemgr Usuually after I end task on the other items or : Statemgr Msgsrv32 (not responding) Cmdninst Cmdninst Rundll32 Ccervtmgr Sbserv that was after my last attempt at booting..... Any ideas what to try next?

OK, I've now gone ahead and disabled all non essential devices in the device manager, and I am still getting the same problem. If anyone could possibly point me in the right direction....that would be great.

Try this site : http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/taskbarplus!.htm. It helped me. Bogomir