Window 7 SP1 - upgrade broke StartMenu functionality and no icons anywhere

Recently, upgraded W7 home premium to SP1 via windows updater. No errs occured/reported during upgrade... rebooted and "wallah"... no icons visible anywhere, and StartMenu functionality is nonexistent by keyboard or mouse-click.

Reverted to an earlier restore point, but unfortunately that move cost me IPv4 functionality and i could not pull IPs.. spent a couple hours trying to restore my net adapters (netsh interface ipv4 install, et.al.), drivers, etc, with no success.... so i imported via USB the SP1 from M$ (W6.1-KB976932-X64) and recommitted myself to stupidity, i mean to the upgrade... IPv4 restored, but no icons, no StartMenu function....

I remember a similar problem with an XP upgrade that required altering Registry values in REGEDIT.. but i cannot find those notes..

your help is appreciated..