No icons on deskop

[Clive James]

Like other unfortunates I got the w32blaster worm which I have removed.

After applying SP1, the w32blaster worm patch and updating Norton anti-virus
I can only run XP Home in safe mode.

When I try to start up in normal mode the system seems to go through the
regular start-up process but there are no desk-top icons. I removed the
desktop theme (modified) file to see if somehow the icons where "underneath"
the desktop theme image, but they weren't.

So I can only run my computer in safe mode.

Unfortunately when I bought my Compaq laptop the version of Windows XP home
that was shipped is a version that can only be restored by overwriting the
hard disk. This would mean having to copy all my file (in safe mode) onto a
CD before reinstalling the OS.

Is there any way to fix this XP Home problem without having to reinstall the
complete OS?

 

[Walter Clayton]

If you can come up in safe mode then you can salvage the box.

First thing is come up in safe mode then use msconfig to start disabling
start up items. Actually first cut is to disable everything on the start up
tab to see if you can come up.

--
Walter Clayton - MS MVP(WinXP)
Associate Expert
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
http://www.dts-l.org

 

[Clive James]

Thanks Walter, In msconfig I started in safe mode without any startup items
nut I still have the problem of not seeing any icons. What the next step?

Yesterday I removed from the startup folder two files that I didn't
recognize: DCOM and WEBDAV. This didn't have any noticeable effect on the
rest of the system's ability to start up (at least in safe mode).

 

[Clive James]

In normal mode all I see after the star-up process is a blank screen (or a
screen with my background image selected) with no task bar. Right clicking
on the blank screen does not produce a contextual menu. I did ctrl-alt-del
and explorer.exe is running.

Not sure if this is related, but I tried resetting the background image to
none, but after re-starting the old image still appeared.