Start bar + desktop icons gone, unable to click anything

[happycow]

i feel like im beating a dead horse.. i've read different variations of this issue and a few different responces..

in a nutshell:

my girlfriend's family computer had a history of issues. slow. freeze. virus. spam. popups. [the dirty kind].. and they just download all those fixes and it just got messy.. then it was officially broke and ... 2 years later.. they got a new drive and let me have at it... and for a beautiful week it was working.

now... at start up.. it asks for a password i never set it up to ask for... [not to be confused with account passwords] .. and at first we bent over backwards to think what it COULD be.. but i never even set one up.. so we thought... dont type anything... so we pass it


and we get that background... no menu start bar... no icons.. no recycle bin... we got the mouse but there isnt much to click ya know... oh and good old alt crtl del doesnt do much ...

we sit back and look at the beautiful xp grassy field...


its not my computer so i dont know all the tech facts ... but is there anything ... err.. possibly doing this?

usually i know what to do with computers but.. its just a weird... issue.. im not sure

also i like this monkey icon :monkey:

 

[gtppopzz]

There could be a lot of things possibly doing this.

what have you installed recently?

Has windows done automatic updates?

Grassy field suggests its windows xp. Can you boot into safe mode?

sounds like it could be the lsass.exe file problem.

 

[happycow]

sorry i havnt gotten back quick

last thing downloaded to my knowledge was mcafee or whatever that is called... i dont use that.. i use.. avg

which is another thing... AVG cant seem to download properly




in any case.. i tried safe mode and nothing would show up.. just the same i was prompted for a password that didnt exist

i even snooped in bios thinking it was like a supervisor password.. and no luck there



what could the lsass be doing? how do i go about fixing that when i cant do much in safe mode...

ehhh