I have a family member who seems to be having an issue with their XP desktop. Suddenly, all of the desktop icons have disappeared. We can't seem to make desktop shortcuts for more icons either. When trying to do so, it will ask if we want to replace the current icon so apparently its there, but nothing shows up. We can't change the wallpaper either. If I go to display properties & desktop tab, only My Documents, My Computer & My Network places are available . No Internet Explorer option like before. All are checked too, but none are showing up. We've rebooted and done a virus scan, but it has come up with nothing. I'm wondering if a setting got messed up. If so, any idea where I would go to change it back? Or is this some sort of other problem? It started acting like this last Saturday. Would a system restore possibly fix the problem?
First off, this would probably be better suited in the PC Software Category... http://forums.afterdawn.com/group_view.cfm/30 Either Windows - General Discussion or Windows - Virus and Spyware Problems... most likely the latter. XP Home Edition or Professional? I'm thinking one of two things happened... 1.) Desktop Cleanup ran and removed your icons. ( doubtful ) 2.) Something got changed in the Administrative Template in gpedit.msc. ( Most likely... and caused by a virus. Virus scan... using what? McAfee and Norton both suck at detecting real viruses. Their virus definitions are extremely outdated and rarely take care of real issues. First thing I'd do is run either Kaspersky Online Scanner or Panda ActiveScan. I'd run Kaspersky twice, to be safe. I'd also install and run MalwareBytes Anti-Malware software located here. Chances are that after you have done all of that and wiped your system of any virus, it will not completely fix the issue. Complete those steps first and let me know what viruses come up on the system and we'll proceed from there. If you end up cleaning your system and it still happens, I'll try to help you tweak your gpedit.msc ( if it's XP Professional ). Otherwise we'll need to edit your registry.
I missed the Software forum section. Guess I should of put it in there. Sorry. Anyway, the anti-virus software we have installed is AVG. I have had pretty good luck with this in the past and it didn't come up with anything during a full scan. However, that being said, I did seem to fix the problem. I basically did a system restore as I stated I could try. Went back about 5 days. Everything re-appeared on the desktop so it seems to be alright for now. However, I think I'm still gonna do another full scan with the recommended Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware software to make sure.
