Hi all, I am new to this forum & I am hoping you will be able to help me with a few problems I'm having with my PC.

This seems to be an intermittant problem but it happens more often than not.

When I boot up the pc no matter who's login i use (mine or the wifes) when the desktop loads, the taskbar down the bottom is frozen. When i move the mouse over it there is just a hour glass.

I Am running windows XP sp3

Hi Clownfish - You are always welcome to ask these questions -
How long do you need to wait for the "hour glass" to go away ?- Also in the mouse settings (Control Panel) is the pointer set to 'Windows Default' -
Otherwise it seems there is another program running in the background at startup - Can you think of any that you may have running ? -
Or do you think that maybe your internet is trying to get started - (Just a few options to think about and then reply) -
Turn off your internet (Just unplug it) until the computer starts and then see if it has improved - Then plug back in and see if there is a change -

go to task manager (control alt delete) then go to the processes tab and close explorer.exe
then go into the applications tab and click the new process button and type explorer.exe
this will restart the process.

hope i helped

Sorry Adem, that was one of the first things I tried & it doesn't work. It relaods the desktop but taskbar remains frozen!

can anyone help with this?

What happens if you just leave it go for about an hour if needed? Does it eventually load? If not then it's possible that you could have something Malware related, if so then you'd need to follow the directions below.


Scan and post logs - read note at bottom in green
If you're having Malware related issues with your computer that you're unable to resolve.

1. Please read and follow the instructions provided here: I'm infected - What do I do now?
2. If needed please post your logs in a NEW topic here: Malware Removal - HijackThis Logs
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• Using these other tools often makes the cleanup task more difficult and time consuming.
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• NOTE: If for some reason you're unable to run some or any of the tools in the first link, then skip that step and move on to the next one. If you can't even run HijackThis, then just proceed and post a NEW topic as shown in the second link describing your issues and someone will assist you as soon as they can.

Hi Ron

Sometimes it does eventually load yes, not always though.Yesterday I turned the PC on at 8:30am and it didn't load properly until about 1pm!

Sometimes it loads first time, but very rarely.

What could be causing that?

Difficult to tell without seeing some logs, but we'd like to see those initial logs in the HJT forum as shown above. Once you've got the all clear from the helper in that forum and you're still having this issue then we'll work on it from a non Malware point of view.