Lost icons

Suddenly on boot up there were no icons on the desktop. There was the task bar and the start button. Ran a hardware diagnostic - nothing wrong. Went to Restore and restored to yesterday and that boot was fine, everything in its place. Shut down and rebooted later and all was gone again. Tried Safe mode and everything was there but on a regular boot, all desktop icons gone.

Looking for suggestions because I know this happens to many but I don't know what to try next. I read a lot of posts but restore didn't solve it, which has left me scratching my head.

 

Hi garsar,

First thing I can think of to ask is, after the reboot and the disappearance of desktop icons, have you right-click an empty area in the Desktop and choose Arrange Icons By, and made sure a check was applied for "Show Desktop Items "? This unhides all the icons in your desktop if they're hidden.

 

Did that first but no luck. The right did not bring up anything.

 

Do a tester by recreating the icons:

Start by adding the standard icons by
>right clicking a blank are of desktop and selecting properties
>click desktop tab
>click customize button
>add the standard icons you wish such as
"My computer "
"My documents "
"Internet explorer "
>uncheck desktop cleanup
>click web tab and make sure you have none of this set, allowed or locked, etc.
>apply and okay your self out

Reboot and see if they stick.

-------------------------------------
In addition this can't hurt. Kellys site and fixes are trusted and frequently used here.

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm
try number 195 "Restore Desktop Icons and Taskbar "

download the vbs fix and run it.

If it would make you feel more comfortable back up your registry first by either exporting it or setting a restore point.

 

lost icons/etc followup

Kellys-korner and then the retype explorer.exe worked to restore but on the reboot was back to square one: no icons, etc.
Did the same fix and got everything back up again but on reboot--gone again. So, any suggestions to how to finish the fix?

 

It seems like a previous reply with details didn't get to the site. What I would add is that Kellys-Korner number 195, missing taskbar restore was the VBS file that helped. I did it twice through the taskbar. Safe mode is not viable method. Then in Taskbar ran new task: explorer.exe and voila got it all back but on each and every reboot, it goes back to the problem of no icons, etc. Still a problem.

 

Hi again garsar,

Well, pooh!

It sounds like your having an userinit.exe [and/or] explorer.exe shell problem. This is most often caused by a virus. We need to eliminate this as a possibility before further steps are taken. You can temporarily take care of this by doing the below:

How To Restart Windows Explorer Shell Without Rebooting Windows

Any further checks involve the registry and I'd rather make sure your clean before fooling with this further.

So, at this point you should be checked to be sure your clean. See this:
this

And head for our malware virus forum where you will need to make the appropriate post.

I'm sure your problem will be taken care of in that forum but if, after posting in our Malware Virus Forum, this continues to be an issue, additional steps can be taken to fix this on a permanent basis.

You'll be in excellent, "trained expert ", gentle hands.

 

Will do but it's getting hard to stay online -- freezes. So far I was able to create the files to send to malware forum but can't find the usual way to post a new thread, Don't know why but it's not available. I'm logged in but problems are piling up. Will try again.