My reply is at the bottom of your sent message:
> When I boot up Windows XP explorer.exe doesn't seem to be running, I
> press contol alt deleate and then go new task, explorer.exe and it
> starts to work for about one second then exits. What the heck am I
> supposed to do? I am running Windows XP SP2 on a Pentium 4 1.79GHz
> with 768MB RAM.
See if this helps:
Missing Icons and Taskbar:
http://kgiii.info/windows/XP/general/missing_desktop-icons_taskbar.html
You might want to start with the restoration from the command line.

Signature
Galen - MS MVP - Windows (Shell/User & IE)
http://dts-l.org/
http://kgiii.info/
"At present I am, as you know, fairly busy, but I propose to devote my
declining years to the composition of a textbook which shall focus the
whole art of detection into one volume." - Sherlock Holmes