Active Desktop.

[DennisD]

Just had a problem with my Active Desktop, which appears to have been conflicting with Power Shadow.

 

After doing a fair bit of googling, it seems that XP's Active Desktop can conflict with other software, but the point I want to make is that the usual method of disabling the Active Desktop, (which I have no use for), doesn't seem to work.

 

ie Right click desktop > properties > desktop > customize desktop > web > uncheck any web pages.

 

What does work, is a vbs file fix from Kellys Corner. No. 16 to be precise.

 

After running this, the web option in the above path is no longer there, and my problems with Power Shadow, fingers crossed, are no longer there.

 

Thought this worth a mention in case anyone experiences something similar.

 

I must give credit though, to Joywin, at the Power Shadow forum, for the initial active desktop suggestion.

[Humpty]

Hi Dennis,with the desktop prompts when in shadowmode you could try right clicking PS's taskbar icon near the clock and unticking and reticking "enable desktop prompt" to see if they appear.

 

If I shut down explorer through taskmanager and restart it, that's what I have to do to get the PS's prompts showing again.

[DennisD]

Thanks for the suggestion Humpty, but hasn't worked. Also double checked "remind me" settings, and I have the "display hints around the desktop" feature checked.

 

My whole desktop is a bit weird at the moment.

 

A few weeks ago I decided to clean up it up totally. Get rid of the ever increasing shortcuts and just use the "desktop" shortcut menu activated from the taskbar.

 

I'm more than happy with this, but out of curiosity I tried to get the normal desktop back again, but didn't happen. Tried everything I can think of, and nothing.

 

Somethings not quite right here, (probably me).

 

I've got all the shortcut icons in the side menu, but can't get them back on the desktop.

[DennisD]

After googling around again, I found a few people with the same problem, but the only solution I've found was this:

 

I found out that the user profile was corrupt and the user had removed the desktop ini and the desktop folder from the local setting directory for that user. recreated the profile and everything works great now.

 

Local Settings Directory? Sure I had one, but can't find it.

[hazelnut]

Perhaps he means C:/docs and settings/ username/desktop?

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Folders

[DennisD]

Thanks Hazel, but I've found the local settings directory. Another "hidden folder", but no sign of a desktop.ini. The only .ini in that folder was this one, which looks pretty odd.

 

 

And things appear to get worse. Thought I'd shut the computer down earlier, but when I came back upstairs I had this message waiting for me although I never saw what happened.

 

 

Which led me to this:

 

 

What this has to do with not been able to put anything onto my desktop, I have no idea.

 

I'm hoping one of you guys can suss this out for me, otherwise it's a complete format and reinstall, which I'd rather avoid.

 

Edit: I now find I have a KernelFaultCheck in my startup that I didn't have before.

[Humpty]

Having a look in the Event Viewer may help shed some light on the prob?

[DennisD]

Thanks Humpty, but over 6000 items in the event viewer, and although there are quite a few red items, I don't have enough knowhow to relate any of them to what I've posted above.

 

It's really pissing me off now, because I've a stack of stuff to back up and reinstall, but that option is looking more likely by the hour.

[hazelnut]

Are you able to do anything in safe mode about your problem?

 

Also Humpty's suggestion about event viewer is a good one, just put the event id number ( try system errors first) which corresponds with the time of an error in google, it's surprising what it sometimes comes up with.

 

Try as well going into the device manager, when there do -view- show hidden devices, and look and see if a driver has the yellow exclaimation mark on it.

[DennisD]

Fixed.

 

Not sure exactly how I've fixed it, but I found 3 consecutive Windows Management errors.

 

.net framework 1.1, .net framework 2.0 & .net framework 3.0. Also multiple errors with Windows Media Player, errors with Firefox, errors with windows explorer. Also a yellow exclamation mark beside Microsoft Loopback Adapter.

 

Reinstalled all the .net framework programs. Rolled back Media Player and reinstalled V 11 again. Uninstalled and reinstalled Loopback Adapter.

 

Also ran another vbs.file from kellys corner: "enable/disable desktop". The other one I ran was "enable/disable active desktop".

 

So I have no idea which one did the trick, if any, but when I switched on just now, I was able to get all the shortcuts back onto the desktop.

 

This isn't a big enough smile to show how elated I am, but thanks for your input, also thanks Humpty, I now have Power Shadow images in corner of screen again.

[hazelnut]

Dennis, isn't it just a great feeling when a problem is fixed