i am having this same problem too! it loads to a black screen with my documents and i have to run explorer.exe to get to my desktop.
my computer came preloaded with vista so i do not even have the disc to reinstall the software, someone help!
I did what you all said and removed my trojan. Before I change the values for the Shell in the registry to what you said, I'll repeat my current values to check if they are like yours:
"Explorer.exe C:\WINDOWS\Config\lsass.exe"
I'm assuming I have to change that to
"Explorer.exe C:\WINDOWS\explorer.exe"
However, I went to the windows directory, found the file, and when I clicked on it a documents window opened up. Does that mean the trojan changed the explorer file to open up to documents? What happens when you click on the explorer.exe file in the windows directory?
Also, I'm not sure the registry items in the Norton database are correct because Vista uses a different registry setup than XP/Me/98, right? (I've noticed that for example this key [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
Policies\Explorer\Run] doesn't exist!)
To fix the problem of windows vista giving you only a black screen and a mydocuments window after loading a profile, try this (I did this in Safe Mode):
CTRL + ALT + DEL keys to open the running processes. Open the file menu and try RUN. Now, type in REGEDIT.EXE to open up the registry and visit this key.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\
Find: "Shell" and check the value data. If it's anything more than "explorer.exe" change it to "explorer.exe" only.
Once you change the value to that only, reboot your machine and try to login. Hopefully, it's now restored and you have windows vista back.
Cheers for the solution, did exactly as you instructed.
Changed the SHELL value to "windows.exe" only.
Checked the processes in Task Manager and "lsass" is running after start up.
All seems to be right with the world
This happened to me immediately after installing Nero 7 and all the relevant updates.
Nero does have some software that integrates with explorer.exe, I was wondering if this contributed to the problem.
I definitely found no virus, nor has any been deleted recently. The other registry keys mentioned were clear or do not exist in Vista.
Anyway - CHEERS!