what can I do when my win 2000 pro machine will not show my icons or
anything desktop related except for the wallpaper?

Hi,

You can follow these steps

1) Press CTRL+Alt+Del
2) Click Task manager
3) Choose process tab
3) Check if there is any process called "Explorer"
4) If yes choose the process and click end process if it is not follow step
5
5) Click on Applications Tab -->New task
6)Type In "explorer" in the open box
7)Press ok
This start the explorer service and you can see the desktop


or

Refer
KB162031
KB256194


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