Classic Shell: Forum

If you ever restore system state to new computer where original backup contained Classic Shell then server essentially becomes non-operational. I can see explorer.exe process being launched but no taskbar and not desktop appears. I can use Task Manager to launch new processes but not more then that.
To overcome this issue you need to install Classic Shell again but your registry will contain remnants of old Classic Shell and it will fail during reinstallation. You need to clean registry first with third party tool of old Classic Shell entry and only that you can reinstall Classic Shell and get normal desktop back.
It's probably not common scenario but I do use Classic Shell on servers which are domain controllers and this took me hours to figure out. It sucks that Microsoft removed Start Menu but I think Classic Shell need to address this issue as well since restoring OS from System State backup is standard operating practice and this renders computer non operable essentially.

If you ever get into this state again, download the Classic Shell Utility from here: http://www.classicshell.net/downloads/
Run it and send me the log file.