Re: Help! The desktop is messed up,..

From: Kelly (kelly_at_mvps.org)
Date: 06/24/04 

Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2004 00:09:23 -0500

First off, next time break this up into paragraphs. Not many will read such
a blob post. That said, if I miss some points is because I am not going
back to re-read it all.

To show Desktop Icons: Right click the Desktop/Arrange Icons By/Show
Desktop Icons.
To show the Taskbar/Not hiddden: Right click the Taskbar/Properties/uncheck
Auto Hide Taskbar....
To show or remove the Desktop Icons from the Taskbar: Right click the
Taskbar/Toolbars/Uncheck Desktop.
To remove Web Pictures: Right click the
Desktop/Properties/Desktop/Customize Desktop/Web.

To remove the Classic Look, Visual Settings have become corrupt. Either use
my utility or the links provided:

Taskbar Repair Tool Plus!
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/taskbarplus!.htm

Stuck in Classic View....
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/top10faqs.htm
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

Another reason for this behavior is having a third party desktop manager
installed that is expecting the selections to have been made for the next
background change and/or changes have been made recently under the
Accessibility Options. If so, revert.

For cleaning up:

Ad-Aware
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/

Spybot
http://tinyurl.com/btf8

CWShredder (Line 313)
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

Hijack This
http://www.spychecker.com/program/hijackthis.html

Free Online Virus Scan
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/housecall/start_corp.asp 

-- 
All the Best,
Kelly
Microsoft-MVP Windows® XP
2004 Windows MVP "Winny" Award
Troubleshooting Windows XP
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com
"mr know it all" <noway@jose.com> wrote in message 
news:u53kd0hs7i0knl0n15s53fgctpilcr6p11@4ax.com...
> Hello, we have xp with sp1 and the rollups but we messed it up. It's
> an old machine (Asus P5A, 550Mhz, 320M mem, 10G 7200 rpm drive at
> DMA2) so I set it up for Classic Menu and set the My
> Computer\Performance\Visual Effects to Adjust for Best Performance. It
> had the handsome, plain blue desktop and no pop-up balloons, no
> scheduled tasks or messenger problems etc. It performed ok for
> checking email and daily tasks. But,..
> My friend, who has an indominable will and can't leave well enough
> alone wants to customize the desktop to display a scanned piece of
> art. She also wanted to remove all the desktop icons and move them
> into the task bar at the bottom of the screen, which she did by
> herself. The task bar is also supposed to disappear until you move the
> mouse over it. I don't know how she did all of this and she can't
> remember. It was done by an IT professional, who can no longer be
> reached, a man who flew in and has now flown away, leaving a trail of
> careless destruction in his wake.  It all went ok except that now at
> boot time:
> Windows boots fine, automatically logs on in a blink, posts her fine
> art over the blue desktop. Two windows pop up too fast to read, I
> think one says "loading personal settings". The tool bar and icons
> appear at the bottom of the screen over the art about 10 seconds
> later. The whole boot takes about 60 seconds. Real good time for an
> old clunker. But,..
> And here is where the agony begins- about 10 seconds later an hour
> glass appears by the mouse pointer and 60 dull seconds go by then the
> Artwork disappears and is replaced by the Blue Classic Desktop and the
> tool tray thing folds down out of view smoothly, now,.. a tiny icon
> appears in the upper left hand corner of the screen. I don't know what
> it indicates. An infinately tiny square with kind of a checkerboard of
> six smaller squares, red white and blue. Part of IE, I think. This is
> where another copy of the tool tray or task bar or whatever it's
> called used to be. One instance across the top of the screen and one
> at the bottom. No, I don't know why someone would do this. But then
> they changed their mind, you see,  and did something to remove the top
> task bar and the tiny square and goofy boot up is some type of residue
> from this incorrect removal I suppose.
> Also, and this saddens me; gone is the crisp and spritely performance
> I was so pleased with. The whole thing now stumbles around like a
> drunk. The pull downs are slow, disk access takes minutes instead of
> seconds. I found a virus in the Cntrl-Alt-Del task manager thing
> called xpmonsys and got rid of it a few days ago by ending the process
> and removing it from the drive and registry. Then I ran Spysoldier or
> something which got rid of 5 spy things. I installed AVG antivirus,
> updated the database and scanned the system which blue screened half
> way through the process, sighting ppscan.sys as the culprit. A driver
> from a scanner that hasn't been part of the system for 2 years. I
> removed it. An 11 year old used the computer for an hour and AVG went
> wild citing 7 new instances of viri which none of us could find in
> something called the vault. I ran the virus scan which blue screened
> xp again. I uninstalled AVG and now I am appealing to you, the
> technical expert, for guidance. I ran msconfig and clicked make
> ntbtlog.txt but it just shows the drivers that load. Is there
> something to show what loads under personal settings or a utilities to
> edit the process? Thanks for your time. Mr. K.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

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