tvulcan

We are making limited progress. Setting the Quick Launch as defalt for all users did make it appear. However, it does not remember how large it was and comes up about 1/4 the size it was when shut down. Created a new user then logged in and set the desktop items similar to the existing user. Restarted logging into the new user and all settings were remembered. Restarted and logged in as the old user and settings had been forgotten. BAck and forth a couple of time produces consistant results - new user is OK, old user settings are forgotten each restart. Safe mode has always given me a different desktop, so I don't think that will tell us much. Question: What if I delete the desktop.ini file for the problem user? Any harm done? (Could rename it instead of deleting.) Or copy the desktop.ini file from the user that works to the one that doesn't? Or look at the registry for the user that works and compare to the one that doesn't (painful, and therefore a last resort)? Thanks again.

Wow! Nice site. Didn't help, but I'll file that link away for future reference. Again, the taskbar and desktop icons are "reset" with a restart. There has to be another registry entry that affects this behavior. Thanks for sticking with me on this.

Yes, did that. No change.

Thanks! That is definately on target, but didn't seem to help. I looked and the quicklaunch folder is there and contains what looks like the right items. Re-registered the dll's, too. I think the problem is Windows isn't remembering my desktop settings (task bar, toolbars, icon placement) through a shutdown / boot up. I've check the registry settings for "nosavesettings" (Explorer Policies), but the ones I've found are set to "0" (save settings). Something else is stopping it from remembering through a reboot, but I can't find it.

If I had a good restore point, I sure would use it. Someone must know which registry entries can affect this behavior. I'll keep looking. Thanks.

I notice the last post here was in August. I had this issue last week and have tried every "fix" listed in this thread (as well as any others I have found with Google searches). Once I noticed the problem, I tried to use the backups, but 2 of them would not process (sorry, I forget the exact error message). Anyway, has anyone found any other potential fixes for this issue other than reloading Windows? (All I have is a restore CD to factory setup. For a 4 year old PC, that's just not an option.) Many thanks in advance.