Black Screen Appears and Missing Desktop After Logging into Windows 7

[NathanDS]

I have been using Windows 7 on my computer from more than 6 months without any problem. However, recently I noticed that I am having some login issues. When I pass the login form, I could see a black screen appearing and it stay there until I manually reboot the computer. I am unable to see my Windows desktop as it would appear initially. What could be the reason behind this and how can I solve this problem?

[windows_user]

This is a common problem and there can be many reasons for the same. In general, it occurs if you have some spyware or backdoor worm which infected your computer. Reboot your computer and boot it in Safe mode. Now launch your antivirus program to scan your computer. Make sure there is no malware detected on your computer, and if any then remove it. Again restart your computer and try to boot Windows in normal mode.

[Devasis]

It may happen on some computers if your explorer.exe process is missing or it is damaged somehow. If its the first case then you can restart the process without any much concerned. All you need to do is press Ctrl +Shift +Esc. This will bring up Task Manager. Go to File, and then "New Task (Run…)". Enter "explorer.exe" in the window that pops up and then click OK button. In the later case, you may need to go to Windows Registry to fix it. Reboot your computer and press F8 to enter into the Safe mode. When Windows is loaded, go to Start, and type "regedit" in the Search box. Right click on the list result and then click "Run as administrator". Go to "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon", right click on the Winlogon entry, select Export , then Desktop in the "Save in" box and type backup in "File Name". Click "Save ". See if you can see the Shell key. If it isn't then click Edit, New, String Value. Give it a name as Shell, and the value as "explorer.exe". Close the Registry Editor.

[Elijah]

In extreme cases it may occur if you have CD/DVD drive in your first boot device and the computer has find some disk in the drive but the drive is not responding, and so the blank screen appears without any error message. The simplest solution to this is remove the disk if you don't require it and see if Windows loads. You may need to restart your computer. If you are still unable to load Windows then the last option is System Restore. Restart your computer and press F8 to make the choice what system should do. Choose "Repair my computer" and then select the keyboard layout and language. Just follow the wizard to perform System Restore.