Boots but no taskbar or icons HELP

I just downloaded version 7.0.3. Booted to it, ran fine. The penguin pops up then it goes to a blue background with like a rocketship and starts etc. However there's no task bar/desktop items or anything. I created a folder on the desktop, which allowed me to see the file system on the harddrive. Doesn't seem like this is how it should be. No option to shut down or anything... just a blank desktop.

Any help would be appreciated!

Greetings, blong.

Your first step should always be to boot with the cheatcode testcd or testdvd.
At the boot prompt, before it goes ahead with a default boot,
type in 'knoppix testcd' for example.
This will take a little time, but you want to know that this test is passed before
you want to spend any time trying to find out 'what's wrong?'