Blank desktop after a reboot

[SE><IE]

I'm facing many issues recently. VMWare isn't starting up, the LAN properties dialog box takes ages to show up, and now there appear no desktop icons after I reboot.
Let me go into detail.

The Vmware issue
I installed vmware worsktation 5.5.2-29772. After a happy reboot I clicked on the vmware.exe shortcut but nothing happened. The cursor changed to busy for just 2 seconds and then it was like nothing happened at all. I checked task manager and it did show vmware.exe running. I killed the process and tried again. But no help even after 6-7 tries. Yeah, I did try starting the player even but no, it will show the same symptoms. I tried run as from the same user and it showed this error
*img160.imageshack.us/img160/1659/error1cs1.jpg
Frustrated like hell, I reinstalled vmware and tried again. This time, it started for the first time and I installed PC-BSD. When I closed and started VMware the next time the same crap started to happen.

The LAN properties
Whenever I double-click on the LAN icon in the system tray then I have to wait around 5 minutes for the window to show up
One more thing, the 2 LAN connections made by VMWare always show Aquiring network address

No desktop icons
Okey, this one has started to show since just 2 days. I have just one user account (named seXie) and it has admin priviledges. I always hibernate my PC except for when a areboot is really required. When I rebooted yesterday, I found that logon process was taking around 2 mins whereas it usually takes around 20 seconds. Also the desktop was blank. No icons and taskbar. I checked the taskmanager and found explorer.exe running. I killed and restarted it; this time the icons and taskbar appeared but no programs were running ( for instance, I started mspaaint but nothing happened, same with office application and other too). So I logged off and back on. This time every thing worked. I tried logging into another account I created for testing this. But this time the screen stuck at 'loading windows settings', it was stuck there until I got frustrated after waiting 10 minutes and cold rebooted. tried again but no help. I tried logging into the built in Administrator account (pressing ctrl+alt+del 2 times at welcome sreen). This time, the welcome screen showed up again and it stuck.
BTW, I clicked my username to login(earlier there was a single account without any password so I was logged in automatically). Everything started up except NOD32 antivirus. Yeah it started too but was stuck at the splash screen. I killed the nod32kui.exe and went to start it manually. When I clicked on nod32kui.exe, I got an error. Well I can't remmeber the error because, strangeley, when I clicked it while I wrote this post, It started.

Screenshot of processes after a normal boot (No desktop icons)
*img523.imageshack.us/img523/8937/error2dx3.th.jpg

Screenshot of processes runnig during safe mode
*img523.imageshack.us/img523/8937/error2dx3.th.jpg

I guess I wrote just too much but then I feel all this is connected.

PS:
I did a full scan in safe mode but there was no threat. Same with spybot S&D
I tried renaming shdocvw.dll too as mentioned here
I also tried stopping all non-MS services from MSCONFIG except Vmware, nvidia and NOD32 services.
Here's a screenshot of my current MSCONFIG services running
*thumb4.webshots.net/t/59/459/5/82/14/2414582140098553724Fuyevw_th.jpg

 

[SE><IE]

*Bump*

No one able to help out?

 

[mediator]

A crashing/corrupt app like NOD32 in ur case which wasn't starting might be affecting the overall performance! But since ur windows is behaving like windows now , then y dont u restore it to an earlier timeframe?

Also try to run it without any firewall,antivirus etc...resource hogging apps I mean!

 

[SE><IE]

It was working nicely till now. Just that it started showing colors since a few days back. Regarding the resources part, well I have around 600MB RAM free at any "normal" time. So I guess thats not an issue.
aur, I tries system restore once and lost some books etc I had downloaded. Don't wanna take a risk, you know

Damn! I don't wanna reinstall just after 2 months
Too much apps to install

Oh yeah! if its the case of some infection (which NOD32 can't detect) then even a reinstall won't help

 

[mediator]

Nah, reinstall is the last resort that I think of! But how did the system restore delete data like books? It never happened with me AFAIR.

Neways, u said about the "Acquiring network address" thing! For that u need to have the vmware network services running and ur "normal process" pic confirms that u dont have them running! So goto run>"services.msc">"enable all vmware services that u can find....afaik there r 4 of them".

Ur MSconfig pic tells another story that ur vmare services are enabled. Then it can mean that these services didn't start at all by the time u wrote ur ordeal here. So try to wait for em to load and then start vmware!

It's quite normal that some apps face hangups for a few minutes when network is sluggish. In ur case it may that vmware is trying to have network but can't coz the services aren't open yet!

About the ram part, u can have 4 GB of ram. But wats the use when it becomes too heavy on the processor? I mean u can open 20 Internet pages, winamp, autocad, oracle server etc that may fill up like 1+ gb of ram easily. But wats the use if ur whole system slows down becoz of that?

When I rebooted yesterday, I found that logon process was taking around 2 mins whereas it usually takes around 20 seconds.

Here u can use some tweaks. I forgot all abou it now coz I have given up on windows. U can use tuneup utilities,winxp manager for the tweaking! Also u shud use some cleaning softwares like " STeganos Internet trace destructor". All these apps r the best windows apps I have encountered so far!

Also, I see a lotta useless services enabled in ur msconfig, like error reporting, help service. U may disable them!