Please help. My taskbar, icons on the desktop and my right click on the desktop are missing. I have tried everything I know and can not get it to work. I try to run explorer.exe and it tells me access is denied. My system restore is no longer working either. It's been over a week now and I have had no luck. This is getting rather irritating.

When your turn your computer on start tapping the F8 key. Choose form the list. If you choose Safe Mode go to System Restore. Or Choose last known Good Configuration. Press Enter cg

Sorry my system restore no longer works and the last known good configuration just ends me up back with no taskbar.

i guess it will let you boot using F8... but not to normal status. only thing i can think is check your explorer.exe, shell.dll, user.dll, and kernel.dll files against a viable set. (cd or floppy obtain from working system) do filecompare (in command prompt), if any diff.s, replace. (these filenames not exact cause i don't have XP.) look for their equivalent xp names)

Is there anyway I can get a replacement for the explorer.exe as I do not have a recovery disk? Also when trying to open files almost every single file, I get this message: Windows cannot access the specified device, path, or file.