I cant get past the user name screen on windows xp

Hi.
I am helplessy stuck. I have a Dell laptop which I switch on, get to the user name screen, put my password in and then I eventually get to my wallpaper screen with no icons at all. It then just stops and nothing moree happens. I cant control, alt delete, the only way of switching off is with the on/off button. Please help me!
Thank Antonio

Is the laptop hard drive light flickering, permanently lit (means it's working) or not doing anything (no light, not doing anything)? If it's not lit at all, try starting the computer up in safe mode.

To do this, tap the F8 key occasionally before the Windows loading bar (the one before the login screen). If done correctly, it'll ask you how to boot the computer. For now, select the first option which is along the lines of "Safe Mode" and proceed to load Windows. Once at the Windows login screen (the screen resolution will be lower, meaning everything appears bigger) try logging in and see what happens.

If it works, you will not have access to the Internet and the likes as Windows, while in Safe Mode, only loads the absolute basics. In short, if it loads properly in Safe Mode there might be a problem elsewhere when Windows loads.

Glad that worked at least.

In Safe Mode, if you press "Start" then "Run" and then type in "msconfig" it will show various things about your computer.

First, check under the "Services" tab, there will be a lot of items with tick boxes in it here. Make sure you recognise as many of them as you can (Microsoft ones are fine, and so are things like your CD/DVD, Antivirus and so on). If there are some unfamiliar ones, un-tick it. There are quite a few in this list, but about 90% of them are Microsoft ones so should be pretty quick to spot any odd ones.

Secondly, also check the "Startup" tab. Again, look for anything with strange file names and untick any you are unfamiliar with. Again, some of these things will be related to your Antivirus, sound etc.

Just take it slowly with which ones you enable/disable and with ones you don't recognise. You'll need to restart your laptop for the changes to take effect.

If this happens to me I restart explorer: by pressing ctrl+alt+delete and killing the current explorer running and then go to File new task and type in explorer and enter and it should load.