You have reloaded XP Home over XP home to try and fix a problem/virus/corruption/spyware and just get wallpaper, no desktop, no menus or anything else

It’s the Windows activation gone Stupid. The activation period has expired, (past 30 days) so you get no desktop and you need to get to Normal mode because you can’t activate in safe mode. (Real clever, no way back!)

1. Turn On your PC

2. Press F8 repeatedly and go to Safe Mode with command prompt
   
   
3. Logon as per normal
   (note: Administrator password is usually blank, but hopefully you know your password)
   
   
4. Type the following in exactly:
   
   cd %systemroot%\system32
   rundll32.exe syssetup,SetupOobeBnk (and click OK)
   
   (note: one space, after "rundll32.exe " also the Oo are two letter o's in "oobe"; capitals and comma are important)
   
   
5. Wait a couple of seconds (although you will Not see any change)
   
   
6. Type ‘explorer’ at the DOS prompt to start explorer then restart your PC normally (Start - Shutdown - Restart - Ok)
   
   
7. You are now able to go to Normal Mode again (For another 30 days !!!)
   
   
8. You need to download “IE8-WindowsXP-x86-ENU.exe” (16 Megs) on another machine because the XP re-install will have reloaded IE6 and believe it or not the Activation wizard now only words with IE8. Isn’t that clever of Microsoft!
   
   
9. Install IE8, (do not install ie7).That should solve not being able to browse and not being able to activate.
   
   
10. Start. All Programs. Activate Windows. You should be done.

Other things you might need:

If the Windows XP Home key is invalid or used you can use Magic Jelly Been to install and new key.

You must you the old version (15.3) because the later version has removed this feature. (Maybe they were threatened)

Or you might need to Edit the registry to reset the OOBET timer. Do this next if the process above fails.

1. Begin by opening the Registry Editor and navigating to

2. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\Current Version\WPAEvents
   
   
3. In the right pane, right-click the ODBETimer binary value and select Modify. Change at least one character of this value to either a number from 0 to 9 or to a letter from A to F, then click OK and close the Registry Editor. This renders the current product key invalid and deactivates Windows.
   
   
4. Now, it’s time to reactivate Windows using your new product key. Enter this command at the DOS prompt.
   
   %systemroot%\system32\oobe\msoobe /a
   
   (Where %systemroot% is your Windows directory.) In many cases, this command will look like:
   
   C:\windows\system32\oobe\msoobe.exe /a
   
   
5. At this point, Windows should launch the Product Activation Wizard. If it does not, restart and use step 10 above.

GOOD LUCK

Thanks for the info Greg!!!