Not booting correctly

[roche]

Win98. Boots up but can only see the wallpaper on the desktop. No icons and no task bar.

I can press F8 during bootup and select the DOS prompt option and then type in win from within the windows directory and then windows starts?

Any ideas on why it won't boot.

Thanks

 

[Jontmke]

When you reboot hit f8 and choose step by step confirmation and see what it is trying to load when it stops. If it goes through to the desktop then it is probably something in the startup of Windows.
Run msconfig (in safe mode if you have to)and eliminate all unnecessary programs from the startup tab. You can unload almost all of them, leave systray and the power ones, then reenable them one be one until you get the problem again to determine which one it is. It takes patience, but it usually helps.

I'll bet its Antivirus, I have had to reinstall Norton once or twice.

Jon

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge. (Bertrand Russell)

 

[livesfreely]

It could also be some faulty hardware. Does it not show icons on the desktop all the time or only sometimes?