Windows startup problem [explorer.exe]

[The Remover]

Hello friends, need some urgent help regarding my Vista Home Premium (32bit OS). Today morning when I booted my desktop it went fine till the logon page but when reached to desktop everything was blank and black. There was no desktop, no taskbar, not ctrl + alt + del, nothing. I was not even able to right click the desktop. Fortunately the only thing available there was MyUser\Documents window. As a workaround I tried explorer.exe by typing the same in this opened window that took me to c:\windows\explorer.exe.

By doing so I was able to check msconfig to see if there is anything malicious. But there was everything proper. I also checked the services that also seems fine. That’s all I have done so far.

Can anyone please help me out fixing all these things?

[Bauer's]

As far as I know probably the Shell Entry is damaged. You will need to fix it by going to registry editor. Start by typing “regedit” in the start menu, press Enter. Navigate to the following location:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon.

Here on the right side, locate and double click the shell string and replace the
contents with just: explorer.exe

Click Ok and exit the registry editor. Now restart the computer to effect the changes and see if the problem is solved. If yet not than probably you need to repair. But before that will suggest you to scan your entire computer for malware , I guess any malware has damaged your registry key.

[The Remover]

Thanks a lot for the help Bauer's. I dint required to scan for malware or repairing the OS. I just tried changing the registry entry and the problem solved.

Thank you.