kaled - 11:34 am on Dec 3, 2009 (gmt 0)

Of course, you could argue that Microsoft is at fault here...

If any critical registry value cannot be read or appears to be invalid, a default should be provided. By the sound of it, Windows is failing to do this, and as a result, Explorer is not being launched. You would think that there would be some code somewhere that ensured a user interface (usually Explorer) was launched!

Kaled.