No desktop or icons

I have Windows XP and I not sure what led up to this but….when I turn on only the wallpaper shows up, there are no icons or start menu. If I right click nothing happens. I went to task manager and I can enter new task.. I can browse and run some program files but soon I get "not responding" message. I tried system restore… no changes. I also tried to start in Safe Mode and the screen comes on blank. What now …. Thanks in advance.

Press ctrl-alt-delete at the same time, this will bring up the Windows task manager, go to the applications tab and press new task, type explorer.exe than press ok this should fix ur problem