No desktop, etc

[Mark Verhyden]

I'm posting this for a friend who cannot use his machine.
He had been looking at some screen savers and wallpapers.
While he is not exactly sure what he did, this is the
current state of the machine.

When powered up it goes to the last image he had been
looking at. There is nothing else, no desktop icons, no
task bar or start menu. Right click produces nothing, the
kb key for the start menu does nothing. This is the
symptom for both admin login as well as his and is also
what happens in safe mode. It is as if the OS has replaced
the desktop w/ the wall paper image. The only interaction i
can get is safe mode w/ command prompt. That will open a
cmd session from which I can execute all standard command
line arguments, including regedit. Running chkdsk shows no
errors. Are there any reg settings I can clear or reset to
get back the standard desktop. I'm trying to avoid having
to do a clean install.

TIA

Mark

 

[Richard]

Hi Mark,

A Repair Install is the best bet. It will effectively reinstall windows over
the existing install without ( hopefully ) loosing any data.

Try the following, courtesy of Kelly's Korner;

Repair The Windows XP Installation

Configure your computer to start from the CD-ROM drive. For more information
about how to do this, please refer to your computer's documentation or
contact your computer manufacturer.

Insert your Windows XP compact disc (CD) into your CD-ROM drive or DVD-ROM
drive, and then restart your computer. (You can also boot with a Windows
98/Me Startup disk with CD support and run WINNT.EXE in the I386 folder on
the CD)

When the "Press any key to boot from CD" message is displayed on your
screen, press a key to start your computer from the Windows XP CD. When you
see the following message displayed on the Welcome to Setup screen, press
ENTER:
To setup Windows XP now, press ENTER.

At this point an option to press R to enter the Recovery Console is
displayed. Do not select this option. On the Windows XP Licensing Agreement
screen, press F8 to agree to the license agreement. Make sure that your
current installation of Windows XP (in your case, the one you wish to
repair) is selected in the box, and then press the R key to repair Windows
XP. Follow the instructions on the screen to complete Setup.

Hope this helps!

Richard