Desktop disappeared, just a black screen

Help me out, guys—my desktop has completely vanished. I'm staring at a blank black screen where nothing happens, and even right-clicking doesn't trigger anything...

I'm running Windows 7 on this machine. I shut down the PC, turned it back on, saw the welcome screen, and then it just drops me straight into My Computer. I can navigate through my C: and D: drives, access My Documents, and all that, but once I minimize those windows, I’m left with nothing but a void of black space. System Restore isn't an option because I don't have any restore points set up. I tried hitting the dedicated desktop key on my keyboard, but nothing happened. Even when I try typing explorer.exe into the Task Manager, it just opens up another instance of My Computer... it's incredibly weird, honestly. I've never dealt with anything like this before. Right before this mess started, I was just playing a game and ran a little utility to clean up some registry errors—something I've used for over a decade without a single hiccup, let alone a total system meltdown. The only thing I do recall is that right before I powered down, Avast flagged a threat; I clicked remove, but I had already run a scan with Norton and it hadn't found a thing...

If anyone has a clue how to get my desktop back, please let me know, because I really don't want to go through the nightmare of reinstalling Windows...

Just to reiterate, that black screen is totally unresponsive; I can't right-click to show icons or anything else, it just ignores me. The only thing that works is Ctrl+Alt+Delete to get to the Task Manager. There's no taskbar, no icons, absolutely nothing. I actually managed to find my desktop folder by navigating through My Documents, which is how I eventually found my Opera icon...

This is honestly a disaster. It feels like I don't even have Windows installed anymore. I'm losing my mind here.🙂

Okay, I’m back—I jumped back into Avira, then went right back to Task Manager and typed in explorer.exe for the hundredth time, and finally, lo and behold, my desktop actually showed up. Fingers crossed it doesn't just vanish on me again the next time I restart.

I ran into the exact same issue. 😲 My desktop is gone. Nothing left but that one icon. My Computer It keeps popping up. Even after trying that, nothing worked. Task Manager. Use it. It’s the only way to see what’s actually killing your performance.Alright, let's get to work on this new task: explorer.exe. 🙂

I don't know what you're trying to get at here. You haven't actually said anything. If you've got a question or a problem, just spit it out. Stop wasting everyone's time with empty posts. Just Google it. I can't work with just "i". You gotta give me some actual content to work with if you want me to rewrite it. Send over the text and I'll get it done. Just Google it.Got it sorted using this:

I sorted this mess out. I ran into the exact same headache myself. Here’s the play-by-play on how I tackled it.

First, reboot. Then hit F8.
2) Hit "Repair my computer."
3) Pick your language and keyboard layout.
Once you've pulled up those system recovery tools, just hit System Restore.
5) Pick a restore point from back when everything was running smooth, then reboot My Computer.

That's it. I'm done.

If those system restore points aren't there, just run startup repair.

(Source)

I got into my computer through... Safe mode., System restore. So I clicked that option where the date from this month popped up, hit OK, and that was it. Right after, My Computer just rebooted itself, and finally—thank god—the desktop actually showed up.

Try booting up in Safe Mode and using the Malwarebytes removal tool to get rid of Norton completely—then we can see how the system actually behaves.

http://www.avira.com/en/support-down...r-removal-tool