Hi, I am very limited to my knowledge of computers and how to fix the problems. If anyone can give me any advice about my computer I would very much appreciate it. I turned my computer on about a week ago, it froze up, I restarted it and was missing my taskbar and my files where opened in a separate window. Nothing simple works. The obvious things do not work. I have no start button. It will not do anything. If I go into control panel, cannot open it from there. Please help!

Try doing a System Restore back to before you experienced this problem.

Windows XP System Restore Guide

Yes I did that, thanks! It didn't work.I think I have a deeper issue somewhere.

Try the fix at Kelly's Korner.

Restore Taskbar and Start Menu - #117 on the left.

Right click on it and save the .reg/.vbs file to your desktop. Then, double click on the file icon (on your desktop) to merge it into your registry/run the script. You may need to reboot your computer for the changes to take affect.

With any fix like this you should create a new restore point and backup the registry first. For backing up the registry I like to use ERUNT.