I don't know what to do with this dumb computer. When I turn it on, it loads up to the desktop - all of my icons are there but I have no taskbar and therefore, no Start button. When I try to open a program from one of the icons on the desktop, nothing happens. I tried right-clicking on a blank area of the screen and then clicking on Properties, thinking that my settings for my taskbar were just wrong, but it never opens up the properties dialog box. Clcking Ctrl Alt Delete does absolutely nothing. And none of my icons on the desktop will open any programs! So all I can do is turn it off and restart it, but then, it's exactly the same. Can anyone help me with this? I have Windows XP and it's an Emachine - and I don't have the Windows XP disc to reinstall from the disc or anything.

-Oh yeah, it also won't read any DVD's or CD Roms - so I wouldn't be able to install anything from a disc even if I had it!

This could be a sign of serious malware infestation. Can you hit Ctrl-Alt Del and on the Task Manger, Applications tab, hit New Task and enter explorer.exe. Does your desktop run? If so then I recommend having one of our malware removal experts take a look. Please read this then start a new topic here.