My computer shows a background but no icons,

Hello,
so ive gone from ctr+alt+delete to get my task manager up n running, ive gotten to the system configuration tools at hand C:/windows/ServicePackFiles/i386/msconfig and gone to system restore to put all my icons back on my screen from an earlier date although i keep gettgin a message saying " System restore cannot protect your computer, please restart your computer, and then run system restore again" so in turn i do so restart computer and keep recieveing same message. wtf do i do?