Windows 7 missing icons and taskbar

We are running Windows 7 on a notebook. After logging in with one account (it has Admin rights), empty desktop appears, with no icons and no taskbar.

I can change desktop properties (e.g. Themes), I can also run applications through the Task Manager, but when I try to click on "Taskbar and Start Menu" in Control Panel, nothing happens. The desktop does not respond to a right-click of the mouse either (nothing happens).

I tried logging in as a different user (no Admin priviledges) and all seems to work fine - both icons and taskbar appear. It's a corporate laptop, so I cannot run in safe mode (but can run msconfig, and I already tried disabilng all non-Microsoft services and all StartUp items in msconfig, and still the same thing happens.

Also tried restarting :) and restoring the hard drive, still seeing the same effect.

I really appreciate your help. Thank you very much.

Sounds like a corrupted profile. Making a new one and copying all the data over is your best course of action. Make certain to show hidden files and folders when copying.