Asked By Bruce Sanderson
31-Jul-08 09:33 PM

I've observed this problem (explorer not starting automatically at logon) on Windows XP SP2 and XP
SP3 from time to time, including two newly imaged desktop (XP SP3); See the thread "Explorer.exe
does not load upon startup/login" from April last year (if it still exists!). Never did get a
diagnosis or solution.
A workaround that I've found to work is to logoff, then logon again. Another one is to
Ctrl+Alt+Del, click Task Manager, New Task... and run explorer.exe.
Also, the problem has never happened immediatly after the computer is restarted; it is intermittent
and only seems to happen if the computer has been left powered on but logged off for a while (e.g.
overnight).
I've not seen it on any Windows Server 2003, but there's lots of code that is common between Server
2003 and XP, so the problem may well be the same there.
--
Bruce Sanderson
http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/
It's perfectly useless to know the right answer to the wrong question.