Windows Vista Home Premium Black Screen

I've had my HP laptop for almost about a year, and two days ago I started it
up and logged in. Once logged in the screen went completely black except for
the cursor. No message, no text, just black with a cursor.

At first I thought it was a crash, but after several reboots still nothing.
Eventually I tried Ctrl-Alt-Delete and got task manager, and then managed to
get some apps up including a web browser.

This doesn't sound like the descriptions of reduced functionalty mode I've
read here and elsewhere. Is it?

I tried going back to the oldest restore point, 2 weeks ago (I've had two
auto-updates since then) but no change. Also tried running slui.exe as was
suggested in anothe post here and all it says is "Activation Successful".

What's going on and how can I get my system back?

You should backup your files and reinstall Vista
from scratch, then install the Vista Service Pack 1.

Performing an HP System Recovery in Windows Vista
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/g...dlc=en&lang=en

So is this "reduced functionalty mode" or another feature?

You get the 'reduced functionality' mode message when your system has failed
to 'authenticate' its Product Key in the timeframe required (30 days,
usually, sometimes as little as three days)
If you know for sure this is not right, you can use the 'phone in' option on
the authentication dialog to straighten this out.
Sometimes just typing in the product key pasted on your box will allow
authentication, as a current thread here points out.
321636 - How to Change the Product ID in Windows XP:
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;321636

I thank you both personally for answering, and at least I now know I have to
rebuild my machine - before I just guessed it was that bad.

So what I have to do is knock it down, build it up again. In the "good old
days" it was just "turn it off and turn it back on again".

This is a catastrophic failure with no explanation. Shame after 25 or more
years of trying, Microsoft still can't write software. The room full of
monkeys eventually writing the complete works of shakespeare should be kept
as a lesson in permutations, not as a software development model.

I have had that happen and it was nothing to do with reduced functionality.
It was just stalling on the video driver. Eg, the driver was ultimately
stuffed. Can you get normal operation while booting? If so, go to safe mode
instead, uninstall the video driver and have the CD ready - or better yet
the newest driver.

One last thing that occurs to me - when someone using Microsoft's Vista
version of remote control takes over a machine, the remote machine's screen
goes black. Worth starting up with no internet and no wifi available to it
to check.

if wan see desktop manually...
use my technique..
1:ctrl+alt+del
2:task manger
3:click new task
4:click "browse"
5:right click at computer and click search..

then the desktop will come automaticly..
=)

if work..
reply my comment.
=)

Forgive me, just digging WinDohs....the room of monkeys illustration above made me lmfao! Trying to fix a similar Vista prob for customer, but me...Linux is the only way to go! A room full of overpaid monkeys never will beat a global open source community for effectively remedying such problems. I thank 'yall as I also finally figured out the system is bonked and has to be reinstalled. Now I have to back up the files.....now, where did I put that Puppy cd....?

;)