Duplicate Ghost Desktop Icons

I am running ME on a family machine not using "duplicate user" desktop settings. Recently, out of nowhere, I am blessed with duplicate ghost icons on the desktop. These icons can't be deleted, they don't function as clickable icons, they can't be right clicked for deletion, heck they can't even be dragged elsewhere. I also note that the ghost icons appear towards the end of the boot up process and are the first to disappear upon shutdown.

Currently I drag the real icons on top of the ghost icons to avoid seeing two of everything. Help me Obewan Kanobes of the world. Although an "intermediate" user of these machines I don't mind opening up the software hood to tinker with regedit or msconfig.

 

Welcome to WindowsBBS Johpa.

Try searching for and deleting a file named shelliconcache, then reboot. It will be rebuilt. May not be the problem but it won't hurt to try. It is a hidden file.

 

Well that didn't work. It is almost as if my "desktop" is being loaded twice. The desktop loads fine but then the background goes grey and the icons load a second time but only one set of icons are valid while the others are visible but totally non-functioning. One of the stranger Microsoft ghost in the machine events in many years.

 

One of the first things I suggest when strange things like this start happening is to install both Spybot and Ad-aware, update and run, removing anything they find. Also an online virus scan never hurts. RAV

If the problem remains after that, at least we can rule out nasties as the culprit.

Let us know what the spyware removers find.

 

I finally found the ghost in the machine, my son <blush>. Somehow he created an image of the screen with icons and then used that image as the wallpaper. I got suspicious when I cound not find a reference to one of the icons in the registry. But I am glad I found this forum and have bookmarked it for future reference as there are loads of interesting and helpful advice here and great support.

 

Good to hear you got it resolved. Thanks for posting back!