[public and therefore personal content free post] Geek help needed!

[angelmine]

I am currently using a borrowed laptop from work which runs XP. Today it has refused to start up properly. It makes the right kind of noises but then the screen stays blank (black). If I do cnt.alt.del then I can ask it to run a new programme (which is how I am online) but I can't seem to get to my desktop (and the little bit at the bottom of the

Comments

[softfruit]

If you ctrl-alt-del and tell it to run explorer, do the icons etc come back?

[angelmine]

They do :-) :-)

You star :-)

Will they stay now or do I have to do something more?

Thankyou :-)

[barakta]

It might be that Explorer which is the graphical windowsy bit of windows crashed.

What I'd advise is a clean shut down so that Windows can close everything down neatly, and then a restart so everything can open neatly as well.

[angelmine]

Ok. What is a clean shut down please?