Vista black screen and cursor after login

This is my Office computer where I’m using Vista Enterprise. Yesterday before leaving I ran the Windows update and installed the same. I put the Shutdown timer on the system for 1 hour (installation time was 40 minutes left) and went home. When I came to office today, restarted my computer, logged in with my Username and Password, until here everything was fine but after loggin in, instead of getting the desktop I got a completely black screen with the mouse cursor.

I waited for 10 minutes but there was no change. Let me tell you that the system was not freeze because I can move my mouse freely. Tried getting some help from web and on many websites I found people saying the windows explorer crashed and hence getting the issue. We should restart the explorer.exe from task manager and that will fix the same. Well I tried doing the same but when I click Ctrl+Alt+Del, it brings me up only with the following options:

1. Lock This Computer
2. Switch Users
3. Logoff
4. Change a password

Surprisingly just the Task Manager is missing, That what I needed. I restarted the computer several times but no help. Logged in Safe mode yet no help. Even loggin to Last known good configuration doesn’t helps.

Any working fix for this ?

I have been through this exact problem on Vista laptop. In my case I did a system restore and everything got fixed. But as we know there is nothing but just a black screen with cursor, hence we cannot do the system restore. You need to follow these steps in order to the same:

• Restart the PC and keep pressing F8 until you get the boot options.
• From here, you need to select Advanced Boot Menu
• On the next window select 'Repair Your Computer'.
• Select your preferred language, choose your User name (by default it will say administrator).
• If you have set any password, type the same and click on 'System Restore'

That’s it.

Am aware if this annoying black screen with mouse cursor. Have faced once on my desktop as well. Tried some troubleshooting and came to know that the cause of it is the Windows explorer. We just need to press Ctrl+Alt+Del and click Task manager. Go to see if there is any explorer.exe running under the process tab. If yes, kill the same.

Now go to File, click New task and enter. Explorer.exe. That’s it. Everything will work normal as before.

Wow, thanks for such a great help Supremer. But did you read my post above or replying just with reading the title ? I have already mentioned that while doing CTRL-ALT-DELETE i just get the following options and NO TASK MANAGER:
- Lock this computer
- Switch users
- Logoff
- Change a passowrd...

Anyone else found a solution to this problem yet?

Just try out the following in steps in Safe Mode. I guess you are aware of going into safe mode:

• Reboot your system in SAFE mode (by pressing F8)
• go to Control Panel
• go to Administrative Tools
• Run Local Security Policy
• select Local Policies
• select security option
• right click every option
• choose properties
• select Explain tab
• find "DEFAULT:..." line
• set the option value to this Default value is written.
• do it for all options
• reboot your system
• Your system will be returned

Hii... I have same probs with that things.. i already login and its shown black screen and cursor.. the big things is i couldn't entered task manager even hit ctrl+alt+del or ctrl+shift+esc. Its totally hung... Can somebody help me please...

thank so much just happened to me after a dodgy download, tried what you said and it worked! where would we be without nerds =]

I tried as many of the things on this page as I could (group settings not available in Home Premium). In my case (working on a friend's laptop), I had tried the ctrl-alt-del in windows and safemode but nothing ever showed up.

Then I went into safe mode with command prompt so I could run chkdsk. It said it would do it on reboot, but with no taskbar I couldn't hit restart, so I tried ctrl-alt-delete and it gave me the screen to select task mgr.
I hit File/New Task and noticed msconfig was the last thing that had been run (it was listed). I typed in explorer and it brought up the desktop.
Then I ran msconfig and someone had set it to selective start and load system services was the only thing checkmarked.
I set it to normal startup, rebooted, and it worked.

I run windows 7 professional x86. ironically, I get to windows login, and then after that, the screen goes black and I only see the mouse. I cannot ctrl+alt+delete. I must reset computer, go to safe mode, and sys restore to fix, but it keeps happening. This started right after I removed that nasty "privacy Protection" virus that s going around. It is actually the Blasterworm virus. If you need to remove it go to gridinsoft and download their "trojan Killer!"

Right now, I am running windows malicious software removal tool to ensure all of the virus is removed.