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Blank Screen on PDC

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7 replies

by joeruzon

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When I log on and do CTRL ALT DEL on the PDC NT 4.0 Server the screen hangs and won't boot up completely. All I get is the background color and the mouse cursor, no icons or taskbar at all. Has anyone encountered this kind of problem. I rebooted the computer several times and now I just left it on with a green background screen with no icons or anything. Problem is I cannot do anything at all. I know still works because it still authenticates users. HELP!

7 replies

by joseph moore

I am gonna assume you have not added anything to the machine.
You can get this problem if Explorer.exe is not being called to run from the Registry. So, try this. Log in to the machine. Then, once you get the blank screen with the mouse visible, press CTRL+Shift+ESC.
That will pull up Task Manager. Now, click on the Processes tab and see if Explorer.EXE is running or not. Odds are, it is not running.
So, click on File->New Task, put in Explorer.exe in the box and click OK.
That should startExplorer, which should then build your Desktop.

Now, go to the Registry (use Regedit), and navigate down to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon
Look for the setting Shell. It should be = "Explorer.exe"
If something else is there, change it back to this default. If it is missing, add this one (a REG_SZ value).

Hope this helps.

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