backgound picture causing lost icons on desktop

My daughter set a photo as a background photo on the desktop and my desktop is now gone - no icons, no start button. Just the idotic picture. I am running Windows 2000 Professional. When I start in Safe Mode I get a black screen with the "Safe Mode" words in each corner - but still no icons or start button. I can get to the task manager by pressing Control+ALt+Delete. And start certain programs and files seem to be intact. How can I restore my desktop? - Can I remove this picture and restore the desktop the way it was? Does anyone have any solutions?

 

First thing I'd suggest is giving her a user account (and restricting it to 'user' rights only by placing it in the Users group and not in any others. That way if she gets inspired again, her changes won't impact you.

Highly unlikely that simply changing the desktop wallpaper would cause the sorts of problems you are seeing. At a guess, she got the thing from a site that brought some other hidden bagage along with wallpaper. Did she also do a screen saver or just the background picture?

At this point I'd suggest you go looking for, and removing, spyware from the PC. From quicklinks in my signature, you want to get the following and after you install one, update it and scan for spyware with settings to remove what is found.
- Microsoft AntiSpyware (which you will also want to run as a full-time protective app)
- Ad-Aware
- Spybot

What antivirus program are you running and is it up to date?

After you are clean of critters which will hopefully fix some of your issues, we can deal with repair of the remaining ones but no sense in doing that until the PC is safer.

 

I had been running Norton Internet Security which I believe runs anti-spyware as well as anti-virus software. I have just updated and run a scan. I found many possible threats and deleted or quarnatied all.

I re-booted and have the same issue.

Any other ideas or solutions.

P.S. This is a computer that I let my children use alone. I have set up many parental controls but their greatest use is AOL Instant Messanger - I knew some issue was inevitable. My biggest problem is that now they will want to use my computer claiming without a computer they will be unable to do their homework. I am not sure what I need more - technical help or help from Dr. Phil.

 

NIS does a fairly good job with spyware but no one product can find all that is out there. I still recommend the items I suggested.

As far as security goes, you have an excellent OS version to work with. It will need some tweaking but is easily enough done. Unlike 9X/ME, the NT systems (including 2K/XP/2003) allow pretty complete seperation of user accounts with each of you having your own work space.

I really don't want to have you start making changes until the system is working properly so please, the antispyware items just to make me feel good. Once you have them installed and scans run, click on your start button, on run, key in

Code:

sfc /scannow

and click OK. You will probably be asked for your 2K CD at some point.

When all this is done, give specifics on what is not working properly. You should be able to change the desktop wallpaper back to something that suits you better by finding a blank space on the desktop, right-clicking, and locating the piece of Desktop Properties that offers wallpaper options. I'm on XP right now so can't give you specifics about the screen details.

You may or may not need Dr. Phil. However, we can take care of the tech parts of this. I would suggest you tell your offspring that they have messed up the PC and are not allowed near it for the next day or two until we get things back in some sort of working order. Then (since the little darlings tend to ignore what they don't like), you might also want to password your user account so they can't use it. We will be giving her/them each an account to log on with very soon.

 

To me, this sounds like the desktop properties got messed up. First thing I would do is look in the desktop folder in windows explorer. If the files are still there, then it is just a matter of making them visible again.

If this is the case, go back to the desktop, and right click on the desktop, and tell it to auto-arrange the icons. Sometimes they get moved off the visible screen, but are still there. This will put them back.

You also might want to check the properties for the desktop. The web tab in particular.

There is a way in Windows 2000 that you can "hide" all the icons on the desktop. Certain wallpaper or screensaver programs that you can download from the internet have this functionality. There is a way you can right click on the desktop, and have it show all the icons. It varies from program to program, so you might want to ask your daughter what she used to put a new wallpaper on it. Now that I think of it, this is most likely what happened.

Hope this helps,

Kathie

 

OK Newt and Kathie - thanks for your help, but I still have problems. I have downloaded MicrosoftAntiSpyware- run it-rebooted and still have the problem.

Cathie I think you are on to something. When I open the task Manager and do a Browse there is a selection/folder to look at the desktop and all the shortcuts from the Desktop are there. However when I do a "right click" within the box I can rearrange the icons(by size, name etc) - however the "auto arrange" button is greyed out. When I right click on the desktop itself nothing happens. So I cannot not arrange the icons or access properties.

Since I need to access everything through the Task Manager by doing a browse, I do not have a Start Button and do not know how to access the Control Panel or find Windows Explorer.

I can start Internet Explorer as well as other Programs through the Task Manager - but I do not have icons or a Start Button on the desktop just the "wallpaper download/background ". I think the icons may be there but I don't know how to get them to come forward. I downloaded another wallpaper with a smaller size thinking that the icons/toolbar/Start Button would appear along the edges. This did not work either.

After talking to my daughter all she claims she did was to right click a photo as part of someones Profile in AIM and set it to be the background. This is when the icons disappeared.

Help|||||

 

Hello,
By pressing Ctrl+alt+del and going to 'Task Manager', try going to 'File'... 'New Task (Run...)' and typing 'explorer.exe' (without the quotes). That should either freeze, or fix the problem. Let us know which

 

How about system restore? As quackball said, in taskmanager, file>new task> and type the following line.

%SystemRoot%\System32\restore\rstrui.exe

Select a date that predates when she set the wallpaper.

 

Nice suggestion, but I believe the user said they were on Windows 2000 Professional, which does not include the System Restore feature!

 

Oops! Guess I forgot which forum I was in. Oh well, it's not the first time and probably won't be the last.