I am running Windows NT 4.0 and after some rather odd freezing I decided to reboot.  Now, my destop does not show up.  I know that this has something to do with the registry, however, I am not quite sure what it would be, where it would be, or how I would be able to get to it.  If anyone can help, I would appreciate it.Doesn't sound very good for the OS's general stability. May be time to format and reload. Could be a virus or some type of spyware.

I cannot recall if NT4 has a safe mode or not. The boot screen or the F8 combo may work to see if it does. Sometimes getting into safe mode and out of it gracefully can help)

I once read that holding the LEFT shift key down during login will bypass your startup folder (only the STARTMENU's startup items not the registry).

There may be an application causing the computer to act odd. Ctrl + Shift + Esc is the shortcut for the TASK manager on Win2k/XP. You can see if this is present in NT and see if a program is causing the computer to lock up.

I hope this isn't our Administroators profile. If it is just a user, you should be able to login as admin and delete the buggy user and readd it.Well, I was able to get taskmanager on screen and started a run box.  I did some digging on google and typed "winnt /ox".  Then BLAM!!!!  My desktop appeared.  Why it worked, not EVEN the net admin could tell me.  So, once I did that, I imported a back-up copy of the registry.  I rebooted and it seemed to work FINE.  I was getting these notifications from my resident spyware scanner that told me the "bootexecute" registry entry was trying to be deleted.  Of course, I denied the change and started a spyware scan and virus scan.  So far, nothing has turned up.  Other than that, everything is up and running smoothly (at least until the next reboot  Thanks for all the info and suggestions!  I really do appreciate it!

**And for a side note, safe mode is not available for NT 4.0 unless you are using a dual-boot environment.  The option will appear then and only then, but it will still take you to its normal runtime environment.  It was a good suggestion tho!

smurray