[SOLVED] No desktop on startup. Black screen with cursor!!

BeardedCrusader

Commendable
Oct 14, 2019
3
0
1,510
Hi guys.. So I am having this problem and I have tried EVERY solution I can find on the web and nothing will fix it.

When I start up my pc it refuses to load the desktop! It shows a black screen with a working cursor and thats it. However everything is till working fine. I can get it to load up by going into task manager and manually running "explorer.exe". Also if I right click a running program and select "open file location" this will also kickstart the desktop to load. Also I dont know if its related in anyway but when I try to run Command prompt the window pops up and closes instantly however I do have access to Powershell.

The same issue also occurs in safemode

Here is a list of solutions I have tried:

  1. Checked registry in the winlogon folder to see if the string "Shell" shows "explorer.exe" (It does)
  2. Deleted the old string and created a new one
  3. used the command sfc /scannow to check for errors
  4. performed a clean boot
  5. Rolled back, updated and reinstalled video drivers
  6. Rolled back microsoft updates
  7. Performed startup repair using a bootable windows 10 usb
  8. Re-installed windows whilst keeping all files and programs using the windows creation tool
  9. Tried to bypass the issue by adding the file "explorer.exe" to startup
  10. Checked registry for dodgy folders. (iexplorer.exe)
  11. Full virus scan using Kaspersky and Malwarebytes
  12. Disabled fast boot
I havent tried any solution to do with hardware as I cant see that being the thing that would cause this to happen. I personally built the pc myself about a year ago and am fairly adept with pc hardware so if you have any suggestions that you think would be causing this then fire away!

What is the damn problem!!!! ARRRGGGHHH!!!!

I have a second account and that is working absolutely fine!
I have a lot of games and game related programmes for hardware monitoring and such and I really, really want to avoid having to reinstall windows because backing up all my game saves and reinstalling and setting up certain programmes is gonna take forever!!

Please help me!!
 
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Solution
I havent tried any solution to do with hardware as I cant see that being the thing that would cause this to happen. I personally built the pc myself about a year ago and am fairly adept with pc hardware so if you have any suggestions that you think would be causing this then fire away!

Have you tried starting PC with no extra peripherals attached and see if changes anything? I mean everything, including speakers. and any extra PCI cards you may have

the stage after the login screen is when windows loads devices and if a device isn't responding in time you get a blank desktop and exploder won't load until its timed out waiting for whatever device isn't replying

I have a second account and that is working absolutely fine...

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
I havent tried any solution to do with hardware as I cant see that being the thing that would cause this to happen. I personally built the pc myself about a year ago and am fairly adept with pc hardware so if you have any suggestions that you think would be causing this then fire away!

Have you tried starting PC with no extra peripherals attached and see if changes anything? I mean everything, including speakers. and any extra PCI cards you may have

the stage after the login screen is when windows loads devices and if a device isn't responding in time you get a blank desktop and exploder won't load until its timed out waiting for whatever device isn't replying

I have a second account and that is working absolutely fine!

2nd account? you do know you could copy the contents of C:/users/broken account onto the other accounts folder in same directory and give it access to everything other account can use? No need to download anything again. It helps to use broken account to do this.

It could just be a broken profile. Make the other account admin as well.

Or just make a local account and copy contents onto it to test it works - https://support.microsoft.com/en-au...-create-a-local-user-or-administrator-account
 
Solution