If, instead, running “explorer” starts a new Windows Explorer window in which you can view files and folder, then the base instance of Explorer is already or still running. The new task to create is called simply “explorer” and running it should get you your taskbar and Start menu back. In that case, you can typically type CTRL+ALT+DEL and start Windows Task Manager, and then click the File menu followed by Run new task: That’s why you might see the taskbar disappear and then reappear after a few seconds. Normally, when that happens and the base instance of Windows Explorer dies, other components of Windows are supposed to notice and start it up automatically again.
As I mentioned, that’s because those are actually displayed by Windows Explorer. You may have noticed that when Windows Explorer dies, in some cases it takes the Windows taskbar and Start menu with it. It’s definitely completely unrelated to Internet Explorer, but there is one characteristic that they share that can cause the kinds of problems you’re seeing. Oh, and it’s also the program that you can use to browse around your hard disk to look at files and folders. In many ways, it “is Windows”, in that Windows Explorer is actually the program that’s responsible for displaying the task bar, the Start menu, the task-switcher, and a fair amount more. Windows Explorer (also known as File Explorer in Windows 8 and later) is a very special program.
