# Booting XP, where is explorer.exe called from?



## hal8000 (Dec 23, 2006)

A friends computer suffered some kind of malware, when booting XP home , only the wallpaper was present, no icons, no taskbar etc.

Ctrl-alt-delete revealed that explorer.exe was missing from the usual startup processes. New task, and entering explorer.exe rebuilt the desktop, however on reboot, same thing happened, had to manually start explorer.exe to get a working desktop.

He's now reloaded windows but never found what was wrong here.

Where does explorer.exe start from. I've looked in windows.ini, boot.ini, system.ini and some areas in the registry, not seen anything

Thanks in advance.


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## Coolfreak (May 27, 2008)

Explorer.exe is located in the system32 folder.

Running *sfc /scannow* probably would have fixed that program, instead of re-installing Windows.

-Coolfreak


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## quizme1220 (Sep 21, 2004)

It should be in C:\Windows. I found this while researching maybe something here you could test http://www.theeldergeek.com/start_explorer_in_c_drive.htm.


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## hal8000 (Dec 23, 2006)

Guys, thanks for the replies.

What I'm asking is how does explorer.exe get started in the first place?

When when windows boots, system processes svchost.exe, lsass.exe and others all get started but from where? explorer.exe must also start otherwise the taskbar and icons never get created.
Thanks in advance


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## hal8000 (Dec 23, 2006)

hal8000 said:


> Guys, thanks for the replies.
> 
> What I'm asking is how does explorer.exe get started in the first place?
> 
> ...


Guys, I've found the answer, its called from system.ini

http://www.norton-lambert.com/faq50.htm

Thanks for helping.


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## Coolfreak (May 27, 2008)

Sorry, I mis-read your question.

-Coolfreak


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