Acer laptop shows wallpaper but no icons or start menu help?

Hello,
I'm in a pickle, I have a acer laptop,with a broken monitor, so I connected a monitor to use the comp still. Then ,I try to play a game and it doesn't show all the way, so I tried changing the screen resolution so it wud show more, I click a 'check box' that I didn't read carfefully, my computer screen went black, then my wallpaper showed up but no icons ,start menu, and cntrl-alt-del doesn't do anything. I am attempting to try safemode and sys restore. But when I click 'start with safe mode' ,a long list of file names come up and does nothing, mabey it just takes a while, but please help with more resolutions!