Windows Explorer [text description has disappeared]

When viewing the contents under the "name" column, the text description has disappeared, the icons are visable however. When the mouse hovers over the icon the text shows. How can this be fixed.
Thank you

 

Right-click the open area on your Desktop and select Properties > Appearance Tab > Advanced Button > and scroll the "Item" field down to "Windows" and set the font color (bottom one) to black. Click OK > Apply > OK.

I'm thinking you are set on white font now and the background is also white so you have yourself a whiteout.

 

Thank you for the suggestion however the font color was already black.

 

That's very disappointing - just when I thought this was going to be easy.

Tell me this, when you right click the Desktop and select Properties, do you see the words "Windows text" on the white background in that first screen (Active Window section) or is it just a blank white field?

 

Yes I see the words

 

OK, then I was pursuing the wrong path. It seemed so logical though.

Can you invoke System Restore and revert to a time prior to this problem?

 

Did you install any update (Windows or hardware driver) right before this problem started ? If you did, try to uninstall/rollback the update(s) & see what happens.

 

Another possibility:

Create a new User Profile and log in under it. If the problem goes away, your other account is corrupt. You can then copy the old account to the new and then delete the old one leaving the problem behind.

The corrupt data will be in the user.dat and user.dat.log and possibly the user.ini files so don't copy those three files forward to the new account. I don't think XP will allow it anyway but I just mention it since it will affect your copy procedure.

Profile Copy Instructions from MS