Leopard/Spotlight

I recently updated my operating system using Leopard. It installed fine, no blue window of death. I enter password and it goes to the desktop. Now i get the icons along the dock but nothing shows up on the desktop. the spotlight bar doesnt appear. after about 20 mins the time, battery life etc show up on the top right corner but with no bar behind it. no icon appears for spotlight either. after about another 20 mins a message comes up saying spotlight quit unexpectedly. its a continuous cycle. is there anything i can do to fix this? i cant open any applications at all.

When you updated, how was it done? (upgrade, erase and install, etc..)
I Would recommend the erase and install option. If that isn't feasible, at least the archive and install option.
There have been numerous problems with just upgrading.

i upgraded, now i wonder why i did that instead of archive install. im in australia traveling so dont have access to back up my files. im sure i read there maybe something saved on my old system that affects the new leopards update but i dont know how to find that certain file

As suggested rob use the erase and install. An external HDD for backups is sure the go with Leopard.