UNSOLVED
Entire desktop missing
My son at college has a huge problem. His Dell, running Windows XP, lost the entire desktop. All icons and the entire system tray is gone. The only way to access programs is to use control+alt+delete and pick a program from the list. When the computer is started, the only thing on the monitor is the wallpaper. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
TIA,
Jeff
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Posted March 27th, 2005 19:00
rfprr,
In order to rule out the easiest solutions have him right-click the desktop and on the context menu that appears click to Arrange Icons By and on the next dialog check "Show desktop icons."
When he hovers his mouse cursor at the very bottom of the monitor does it change to a double-headed vertical arrow? If so, he can drag updwards to display the taskbar again.
Post back if either (or neither) of these actions corrects the situation.
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Posted March 27th, 2005 19:00
rfprr,
How about starting in a different mode? Tap F8 on startup and select either Safe Mode or Last Known Good Configuration? Does either work?
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Posted March 27th, 2005 19:00
Thanks for the response. We've tried that to no avail. Clicking anywhere on the screen, right or left clicks, produces nothing.315
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Posted March 27th, 2005 20:00
Thanks for all your advice. We'll give the safe mode a shot and let you know the outcome.
Jeff
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Posted March 27th, 2005 20:00
rfprr,
Safe Mode would at least give you access to some features which might help, such as System Restore. If the system will not boot to Safe Mode or Last Known Good Configuration it may be necessary to do a repair reinstallation of XP, which may correct the problem without erasing any data currently on the system (although it would require reinstalling all Critical Updates which have been added since the system was placed into service).
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Posted March 27th, 2005 23:00
We tried running Last Known Good Configuration and Safe Mode but in both instances, just a blank screen with no icons, start button or system tray at the bottom. Is re-installing Windows XP pretty straight forward by just popping in the CD?Thanks,Jeff315
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Posted March 28th, 2005 02:00
rfprr,
Reinstalling is described here. While straightforward it can be time consuming if much data has to be backed up before reinstallation. If there is a minimum of perishable data the process takes less than two hours.
Before a reinstall, I'd give a repair reinstallation a try. It does not disturb the data. The procedure for doing that is here.
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Posted March 28th, 2005 18:00
before trying a reinstall go to task manager. Then click New task and type in explorer.exeMessage Edited by shadow1768 on 03-29-2005 03:51 PM
rfprr
5 Posts
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Posted March 27th, 2005 19:00
Denny,
Haven't tried running safe mode. What would we do after running safe mode? Son is out for the afternoon, will try that tonight.
Thanks,
Jeff