Desktop won't display

  • Thread starter Thread starter br57
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br57

My neighbor just had some kind of failure while surfing the net and now his
desktop photo won't display. Right clicking on the desktop brings up the
properties window but it says "not available." Everything appears fine in
device manager and the system won't restore to an earlier time.

Everything seems to work fine except it may be a tad slower. It's Windows
Home on a Toshiba notebook. Any ideas?

Thanks.
 
When you say right click brings up the properties but says "not available",
exactly what is not available? Can you get to the desktop tab, or is that
when you get the error message, or is it when he clicks on the name of the
image he wants on the desktop? He might try clicking on the browse button,
in that desktop tab, if he can open the properties/desktop and find the
photo he wants on his computer. Just because it may be listed in the
background list in that tab doesn't mean that the path to the image didn't
get lost somehow. I find I have to re locate photos I've used, even though
they are still listed.
 
br57 said:
My neighbor just had some kind of failure while surfing the net and
now his desktop photo won't display. Right clicking on the desktop
brings up the properties window but it says "not available."
Everything appears fine in device manager and the system won't restore
to an earlier time.

Everything seems to work fine except it may be a tad slower. It's
Windows Home on a Toshiba notebook. Any ideas?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

There is no way to guess what happened to your neighbor's machine
because we don't have enough information from you. S/he should start
with the normal scanning for viruses/malware:

http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Removing_Malware

Then when s/he knows the computer is completely clean, if there is still
a problem post back with details about the results of the malware
t-shooting.

Malke
 
I should have noted that he did do a full scan. Nothing was found. Right now
the screen is white, he is unable to bring up any background. The properties
box opens but just says not available, there is no way to browse to any
image. Could the display driver have become corrupt? Device manager seems to
indicate that everything is fine. He installed spyware and did find some
items but they were quarantined.
A call to Toshiba and they suggested inserting the restore CD which I guess
returns the computer to it's original state, meaning everything is lost. Not
really an option since everything else seems to work.
 
br57 said:
I should have noted that he did do a full scan. Nothing was found.
Right now the screen is white, he is unable to bring up any
background. The properties box opens but just says not available,
there is no way to browse to any image. Could the display driver have
become corrupt? Device manager seems to indicate that everything is
fine. He installed spyware and did find some items but they were
quarantined. A call to Toshiba and they suggested inserting the
restore CD which I guess returns the computer to it's original state,
meaning everything is lost. Not really an option since everything else
seems to work.
Click to expand...

Yes, giving full information in the first post is always A Good Thing.
Since I don't know how your friend scanned or with what, I'd suggest
running the Smitfraud cleaners per:
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Smitfraud_Trojan

After that, if the computer is truly clean here are a few suggestions:

If possible (and I can't really tell from your post if this will be
possible) go to the Display applet in Control Panel and look on the
Desktop tab. Click on Customize Desktop, and then click on the Web tab.
You will see that there are checkmarks next to "My Current Home Page"
and probably "Lock Desktop Items". Uncheck these.

If you can't enable desktop backgrounds after a virus, MVP Kelly Theriot
has a fix. Look under Wallpaper-Desktop-Disable Changing here:

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_w.htm

If Display tabs are missing, run Kelly's registry edit on line 285,
right-hand side "Restore all display tabs".

Malke
 
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