Stuck In Loading Desktop And Wall Paper

I was working when my system seemed to go a bit crazy, bunch of windows opened up and told me that my virus protection was not working etc.. I closed them all and ran a quick scan with Symtec to see if I had somehow picked up a virus. Decided to reboot. When I restarted the computer I had this strange circle going on. It goes thru a normal bootup, and when it is loading the tray, it starts going in a circle. Starts loading up programs and then restarts and then restarts etc. Most of the time, after 3 or 4 times it ends with just the wall paper visable. Now, at this point the computer seems ok, I can run most any program by starting them in Task Manager ( applications, new task etc...). In fact that is how I signed up for this forum and wrote the note. BUT I cannot get the desktop back. The only way is to run Windows Explorer, via task manager, then you get it back, but it does the circle thing continously. IF you can get a program started during the part of the circle where icons etc are visable, then it will run. SO, I tried doing a restore, went back one day and ran the restore. Seemed to run normally. BUT the symptoms are the same ( now it was close to midnight, so I should have gone back farther). NOW, when I tried to go and do another restore, to go back farther, the restore program runs normally, except it will not let me choose a day. Shows many possible days and the help runs etc.. the buttons "push" but nothing happens.