How do I recover my desk top (can't see my icons or the start bar) after unistaling a few programs

Do you only see your background image and wallpaper?  

Are all your desktop icons missing and you cannot see your Taskbar in the bottom of the screen or are just the icons missing and you can see the Taskbar in the bottom?

First check the simple things.  Right click an open area on your desktop, choose Arrange Icons By, and be sure the Show Desktop Icons option has a checkmark next to it.  That will work if you are only missing desktop icons but still see the Start button and Taskbar.  If you are also missing the Start button and Task Bar, that is not your problem.

If you only see your background wallpaper image and do not see any desktop icons and no Start button or Taskbar, this usually means that the program explorer.exe is not running (and it needs to be running) or the explorer.exe program is afflicted.  A good way to think about it for the moment is that explorer.exe process "is" your desktop.

If this is the case there is generally malicious software afoot.  

What is your system make and model?

What is your XP version and Service Pack?

Do you have a genuine bootable XP installation CD that is the same Servie Pack as your installed Service Pack (this is not the same as any Recovery CDs that came with your system)?

Describe your current antivirus and anti malware situation:  McAfee, Symantec, Norton, Spybot, AVG, Avira!, MSE, Panda, Trend Micro, CA, Defender, ZoneAlarm, PC Tools, Comodo, etc.

Sometimes your anti malware program will quarantine (and in effect delete) your explorer.exe file (or other critical XP system files) if it thinks that the file is infected.  The file may really be infected, but you can find out for sure and then reconsider your anti malware options.

First, you need to get your desktop working so you have some maneuvering room, then you can resolve your potential malware issue.

From your background image, press Ctrl-Alt-Delete and open Task Manager.

Look at the Processes tab and if the explorer.exe Process is not running, launch it as follows:  

From Task Manager, click File, New Task (Run...) and in the Open box enter:

%windir%\explorer.exe

Click OK and see if you get your desktop back.  If you get an error, we need to know what it says.

If explorer.exe is already running in the Processes tab, it is likely the object of the affliction and may need to be replaced (which is not difficult).

If you see that the explorer.exe process is already running in Task Manager, highlight the explorer.exe process then click the End Process button to terminate it, and launch a new explorer.exe process as indicated above.

If things look okay now, your system is still not fixed, but it should be usable enough so now you can fix it.  Of course you still need to fix the problem so you don't have to do that every time you restart your system.

I would start with these scans:

Perform some scans for malicious software first, then when these scans run clean, fix any remaining issues:

No matter what you are using for malicious software protection do the following:

Download, install, update and do a quick scan with these free malware detection programs:

Malwarebytes (MBAM):  http://www.malwarebytes.org/products/malwarebytes_free

SUPERAntiSpyware: (SAS):  http://www.superantispyware.com/

SAS will probably report a bunch of tracking cookies and you can just let it delete them.

Do a full scan once in a while when you have more time (perhaps hours).

They can be uninstalled later if desired.

When the scans run clean, reboot and then troubleshoot any remaining issues.

Please report back with your system information and your results if you need additional help.

See if this helps: After the Windows Logo displays or after you log on to Windows, a Windows XP-based computer may only display the wallpaper, a black screen, or a blue screen

Thank you so very much ...your suggestion worked!

I appreciate it very much...thank you!

If you see the Taskbar flash and disappear, it sounds like you could have some malicious software on your system that is preventing explorer.exe from becoming a running process.

That is what malware sometimes does - afflicts your system in ways that will fool you into thinking that the only way you are going to get your system going again is to do something like use System Restore, a Repair Install or totally reinstall your XP when none of those things are likely to be necessary.

It could also have something to do with the innocuous programs you uninstalled.

We could sit here all day trying things the might work sometimes maybe and you might get lucky eventually, but if I were you I would go out to BleepingComputer and post your issue in their 'Am I Infected' forum and be sure to include the history of the problem and what you have done so far (including trying to start explorer from Task Manager).

You could run System Restore from Task Manager, see if you can get on the Internet to download some reputable malware scanners, etc. but that is just trying things that might work and I am not a tryer.

They have malware experts there who are quite good with these kinds of things and have all the tools you might need to get running again.  That is their specialty in that forum.

Here is the link:

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/forums/f/103/am-i-infected-what-do-i-do/

Other folks here may have some ideas too and I hope that when you figure it out, you will remember to tell us what you did to get it working again.

Open Task Manager with Ctrl-Shift-Esc or Alt-Ctrl-Delete.

Under the Applications tab click 'New Task' in the bottom right corner and enter explorer.exe.

This may take a lot of time or little time to start itself up again.

...Unless of course it doesn't work.