Lately when I sign on to my computer, I see my wallpaper and no desktop icons. And no toolbar or start button or anything else but a nice picture of my dogs. I have to screw around with alt/control/delete and right clicking all around, etc and finally it all re-appears. But I haven’t found a consistant way to get it to come up when I sign on. I would love suggestions about what the problem is and how I can fix it.
Hmm sounds like Windows Explorer (not IE…er, well not entirely) is failing somehow.
If I’m working and I get a critical error that explorer has quit working, my machine won’t crash (yay XP!) but I’ll lose my desktop and taskbars for a moment while it rights itself.
Do you have XP Home or Professional? Does XP Home come with Administrative tools? If it does you can go to Start - Settings - Control Panel - Administrative Tools - Event Viewer and see if you’ve got any notices in there about explorer.exe konking out.
Uh…as for why…welp, did you do the standard recommended spybot-adaware-avg-otheAV scans?
I use SpySweeper, which I have found to be more powerful than SpyBot. Unfortuately I think the problem was as likely caused by a routine Windows update as by spyware or a virus. The last Windows update knocked out the sound on my machine because the driver is “incompatable” with the updated Windows. F&*^ingt computers.
Thanks for showing me the event monitor, though. I didn’t know about that and it’s interesting to look at.
not related to the OP directly, but different spy/adware scanners catch and miss different ones, so multiple scanners is helpful.
Oh, another detail: I set up the computer so that there are two password-protected Windows log-ons. I wish I hadn’t done this - it’s mostly a hassle. Not sure if I can consolidate the stuff that is on each of them now. Anyway, my husband can see his desktop icons and toolbar just fine when he signs on, but I don’t seem to be able to easily with mine.
On your husband’s account, go to Start - Run and type “msconfig” (no quotes). It’ll bring up a window with some tabs at the top. Click the “Startup” tab.
See what he’s got in there. Then log out.
Log in as you. Uncheck anything that you have that he doesn’t have. Restart when asked. Log in as you after reboot and see if you still have the problem.
Seems like something is loading in the background on your account and not your husband’s.
Also do as Aserann suggested. One spyware tool is never enough. Get Spybot and Ad-Aware from www.download.com, install, update and run.
Also run your virus scanner. If you don’t have one, get AVG from http://free.grisoft.com. Download, install, update and run.
I do have SpyBot and a virus scanner. I just tried my husband’s log in and there is quite a long delay (like over ten minutes) before the desktop icons appear.
I’m not sure how to do that when I don’t have a start button or any other buttons to use to access anything.
Log on as yourself. Right click anywhere on the desktop. Select “Arrange icons by” Make sure that “Show Desktop icons” is checked.
It’s possible that you accidentally unchecked it.
Ok I thought you meant that his login was working just fine.
You’re kind of confusing me now…does your desktop eventually come up and work fine? Is there just a long delay? Is it now the problem with both logins?
Did you run spybot and the virus scanner?
Have you tried logging in in safe mode? Reboot and before the “LOADING WINDOWS XP” graphic comes up hit F8 and choose “boot in safe mode”. Then get in there, run all of your spyware and virus apps, clean everything that needs to be cleaned. Then go to Start - Run - msconfig - startup tab and un-check stuff that you don’t know what it is. Uncheck any printer startup tools while you’re at it. Then restart when prompted. Come back in regular (not safe) mode.
Let us know.
I saw this at a customers of mine. Happened to 2 of the sales guys. When they logged on just a green screen, the icons would flash for a second and then disappear. Right clicking on the desktop did nothing so you couldn’t see if the show desktop icons was checked or not. However if I logged in as admin I could get the icons. I looked and looked, couldn’t find a damn thing on it, so I eventually did a system restore. Worked like a charm. I would recommend doing that. Do it from safe mode, or from your husbands account.