RVStevenson
IS-IT--Management
We have recently experienced a problem in which our desktop (explorer.exe) was not functioning properly. Rather than showing the taskbar and desktop icons, the system was at a blank background screen.
Explorer.exe was running in task manager processes and if we ended the process and manually started it via new task it would appear after a VERY long (15 minute) delay. Everything started up fine in safe mode.
During my troubleshooting, here is what I have gathered:
This can be caused by a variety of issues. One of the most common is that there are some old .dll files in the system root. If you have been searching the internet for "blank desktop" you undoubtedly found this article on the Microsoft Knowledge Base.
Often this is the result of a recent hardware or software installation and can often be solved by the reversal of the installation in safe mode.
Sometimes this can be caused by corrupted registries either because of manual editing or the use of some registry cleaning tools. Unfortunately, I had ran several of these to attempt to fix the original problem and I eventually had to reverse all of these "repairs".
Occasionally this can be a delay because your system is waiting for a network resource to become available and there is a long time-out.
Unfortunately none of these hints helped me in my problem so I decided it was most likely a corrupted service as it does not occur in safe mode. I began by making a list of all running (obviously required) services in safe mode and then comparing this against the list of services that were automatically starting in normal mode. I then disabled all the "extra" services and rebooted into normal mode fine. From there I began re-enabling services from those which I disabled in small groups until I finally narrowed it down to the single service which was causing the problem. After reactivating all but the problem service I was back to normal operation. This was a time consuming process as a reboot is required after changing the status of each service to see if it impacted the problem. My system had a problem with the Shell Hardware Detection. Apparently I had some sort of plug and play hardware issue.
Thanks,
Ryan V. Stevenson
Specialty Services Director
National Support Network
East Lansing, MI - USA
Ryan@itpayz.com
Explorer.exe was running in task manager processes and if we ended the process and manually started it via new task it would appear after a VERY long (15 minute) delay. Everything started up fine in safe mode.
During my troubleshooting, here is what I have gathered:
This can be caused by a variety of issues. One of the most common is that there are some old .dll files in the system root. If you have been searching the internet for "blank desktop" you undoubtedly found this article on the Microsoft Knowledge Base.
Often this is the result of a recent hardware or software installation and can often be solved by the reversal of the installation in safe mode.
Sometimes this can be caused by corrupted registries either because of manual editing or the use of some registry cleaning tools. Unfortunately, I had ran several of these to attempt to fix the original problem and I eventually had to reverse all of these "repairs".
Occasionally this can be a delay because your system is waiting for a network resource to become available and there is a long time-out.
Unfortunately none of these hints helped me in my problem so I decided it was most likely a corrupted service as it does not occur in safe mode. I began by making a list of all running (obviously required) services in safe mode and then comparing this against the list of services that were automatically starting in normal mode. I then disabled all the "extra" services and rebooted into normal mode fine. From there I began re-enabling services from those which I disabled in small groups until I finally narrowed it down to the single service which was causing the problem. After reactivating all but the problem service I was back to normal operation. This was a time consuming process as a reboot is required after changing the status of each service to see if it impacted the problem. My system had a problem with the Shell Hardware Detection. Apparently I had some sort of plug and play hardware issue.
Thanks,
Ryan V. Stevenson
Specialty Services Director
National Support Network
East Lansing, MI - USA
Ryan@itpayz.com
