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Baseball Mom

updated

21 years ago

BM

Baseball Mom

7 Posts

0

15065

August 25th, 2005 23:00

Start menu and all icons disappeared

Please help if you can. When my son's computer boots up at college he now has no Start menu, taskbar or icons - just his wallpaper.
He can use Ctrl-Alt-Del to access the task manager to run his program. We have tried restore, run antivirus and adware programs.
Can anyone help us with this problem.
Thanks in advance.
  • BM

    Baseball Mom

    7 Posts

    1016

    0

    Posted August 26th, 2005 00:00

    Thank you for your quick response. He is updated with Norton Antivirus. I will advise him to go to the website and try it. Will let you know if it works. I have been reading the message boards and it seems we are not the only ones with this problem going on.
    Thanks again!
  • A

    akahan

    39 Posts

    1016

    0

    Posted August 26th, 2005 00:00

    Please let us know how it goes; as mentioned, there are other issues that could also create this problem, so there are other things we can try if the first-proposed solution doesn't work.
  • V

    volcano11

    2 Intern

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    27973 Posts

    1016

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    Posted August 26th, 2005 00:00

    These are the symptoms of a virus that is now widely circulating.  Does you son run antivirus software with up to date virus definitions?  In any case, I suggest he run a free online virus scan at:

    http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

    Steve

  • A

    akahan

    39 Posts

    1016

    0

    Posted August 26th, 2005 00:00

    His problem is that explorer isn't starting up.  There are a number of possible causes of this, and each cause would have a different fix.  The most LIKELY cause, in my experience, is that he got hit by the F-Nimda virus.

    Go to this link and read the text there:

    ftp://ftp.f-secure.com/anti-virus/tools/shellfix.txt

    He'll need to use a different (working) computer to put the fix file (a registry modification) on a floppy drive), then go back to his computer, floppy in hand, and run the file on the floppy as described in the text file above.

    The file to put on the floppy is here:

    ftp://ftp.f-secure.com/anti-virus/tools/shellfix.reg

  • A

    akahan

    39 Posts

    1016

    0

    Posted August 26th, 2005 19:00

    shellfix.reg is at the address i put in the email earlier in this thread.
     
    Again, because there are MANY possible reasons that explorer isn't opening for you, running shellfix.reg (follow the directions in the .txt file) may not solve your problem.
     
  • S

    smcer98

    5 Posts

    1016

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    Posted August 26th, 2005 19:00

    I am having the same problem as baseball mom.  I lost all my icons and toolbar after I ran spyware and ad aware.  Where do I get the shellfix. reg?  Is there a website or something I need to go to?  Thank you!
  • S

    smcer98

    5 Posts

    1016

    0

    Posted August 26th, 2005 20:00

    Thank you for your help.  At this point I am willing to try anything to try and get my items to return.  Thanks again!
  • BM

    Baseball Mom

    7 Posts

    1016

    0

    Posted August 26th, 2005 21:00

    Update on trying to fix the problem. Failed to mention but he has a 2 yr old Dell Dimension desktop running Windows XP Pro.
    He has tried Safe Mode, shellfix.reg and trendmicro housecall.
    No success on any of these fixes.
    Any more suggestions out there?
  • A

    akahan

    39 Posts

    1015

    0

    Posted August 26th, 2005 22:00

    Sure!   Check here:

     

    http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q256194

     

  • BM

    Baseball Mom

    7 Posts

    1119

    0

    Posted August 26th, 2005 23:00

    Wish I had good newes. That did not fix the problem. Thanks for your efforts.

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