I have a Dell Latitude,and my desktop will not launch any
of the system applications (those that are integrated
into Windows such as explorer, games, IE etc.)

When I logout, the system tries to shutdown wupdate.exe,
but it does not appear to be running and it doesn't show
in the task manager.

The problem started when I restarted the computer after
it had gone into sleep mode. I reconnected to the
internet and went to a browser window that was still open
( a secure site) and when I tried to go back IE was shut
down and the desktop has not worked properly since.

Any Ideas?