Help ASAP. DESKTOP Icons are GONE

[John C. Harris, MPA]

I have a user in the field that just called and said all of her desktop
icons have disappeared from her screen. She can see the mouse on the screen
but cannot left or right click. No task bar at the bottom, no "unused
desktop items" folder. Have tried hard starting (will not allow
cntrl-alt-delete) and nothing helps. She is on a laptop using XP Home.

Any ideas?

 

[Helmut Hauser]

this Problem can occour

- if the user switches screen (on laptop with the FN + Fx
key) to external source

- if the user tries to extend the desktop (some Ati OEM
drivers had the problem that the main screen was switched
as extended desktop, can be revoked via display properties)

- the explorer task hangs - CTRL+Alt+Del - Taskmanager -
New Task - Run - "explorer.exe"

- some trojan horse/malware/worm is installed
(Netbus, Bo2k or the infamous Blaster worm)

Helmut

 

[John C. Harris, MPA]

She is not very computer literate so I am trying to get her to bring the
laptop to me vs me banging my head against the wall trying to walk her
through this stuff. I have a sneaky suspicion that she has done something to
it and is not telling me, which is normal, so I need to get my hands on the
laptop and look at it. Thought it might be something easy, but my hunch is
that there is something greater. Thanks for the help and guidance.

 

[Mike Brearley]

If you read what has been attempted so far, then short of the last line in
your reply your suggestions won't help. She can't right or left click and
ctrl+alt+del does nothing, hence no way to change the display properties (as
the user can't access the display properties page), can't launch explorer
via the task manager as ctrl+alt+del does nothing and the video obviously
isn't switched to an external source as the user can see the mouse.

Now virus, that's always a possibility. The user should try to boot into
safe mode and run a virus scan. She may also need to update the virus scan
definitions (not sure how easy that would be in safe mode).

--
Posted 'as is'. If there are any spelling and/or grammar mistakes, they
were a direct result of my fingers and brain not being synchronized or my
lack of caffeine.

Mike Brearley

 

[John C. Harris, MPA]

Mike;

Yes I was letting that go. When I get the system here I will try to get it
into safe mode and see what I can do. I have some tools I can run off a Rom,
as long as I have access to it. Thanks for the input.

John