THE TALE OF THE LOST ICONS

~ ~ A Mysterious Tale of the Unexpected ..

Published on August 27, 2008 By mike b1954 In Personal Computing

Just a quickie ... hopefully ... for starters .. FF... XP SP3 Object Desktop all up to date

Being a user of Desktop Sidebar I have all my quick launch icons in a panel on DS and usually they are a mirror of what normally are my desktop icons ~ all working perfectly ... no problems at all ..

In the last few days , though I have had to a lot of admin / office work so I usually , for ease , right click , arrange icons by ... then select SHOW DESKTOP ICONS .. .Which usually come in right away and I can click and run other stuff from those as well as DS ....

Until Now ..

When I right click and arrange icons by , the second drop down window ..Name, size, type Show in groups , auto arrange, show in grid etc , is greyed out so clicking there does nothing .. so I cannot get my normal icons onto the desktop ....

For a quick fix , to see if it worked , I opened up Icon X and THERE were all the normal icons ... Just as if I had done it normally ... except that , when I unload IconX normally from the task bar the icons WOULD re-appear normally without the Icon x effects ..

But they don't .... I just get a blank desktop with all my Quick launch icons in DS working normally .. but NO onscreen icons !!!

Weird ..... If anybody has any suggestions please feel free to add them here, as I am totally flummoxed to the nth with this one ..

FYI : Most recent install was the Impulse Update , and the FENCES beta .. which I uninstalled to see if that was causing the problem ...

And finally -

WindowBlinds version : WindowBlinds 6.2 (build 61 x86)

WindowBlinds is installed correctly on this PC
WindowBlinds appears to be activated on this PC
Your machine supports per pixel borders on WindowBlinds skins.

(Plug and Play Monitor) 1 is attached to NVIDIA GeForce 6200

Wblind.dll     2008/07/22 10:10:20
Wbsrv.dll     2008/07/22 10:11:10
Wbconfig.exe     2008/07/22 10:10:32
Wbload.exe     2008/02/14 12:05:14
Wbhelp.dll     2007/08/27 11:54:07
Wbui.dll     2007/12/01 17:43:05
Tray.dll          2007/09/12 17:58:21
Screen.exe     2008/06/13 11:24:09

Comments (Page 1)

BigDogBigFeet

on Aug 27, 2008

If you go to your taskbar and right click, select toolbars, then Desktop do they show there in a menu? If you also enable your quick launch toolbar and choose show desktop does that help?

You might also try firing up DesktopX Builder(Configuration Panel) and toggling the show/hide desktop icons there to see if that will make them visible again.

BigDogBigFeet

on Aug 27, 2008

Did you reboot after you uninstalled Fences?

Philly0381

on Aug 27, 2008

Just a guess mike but when you right click on the desktop do you have a check mark by Show Desktop Icons? From what you describe it isn't checked. In other words Windows is hiding you desktop icons.

BigDogBigFeet

on Aug 27, 2008

lol I think you nailed it Philly! That sounds just like what he's describing.

mike b1954

on Aug 28, 2008

Thanks for the quick replies folks ..

OK ..

BigDogBigFeet :
First suggestion .. Nope Right click taskbar toolbars no show ..
& Quick launch /toolbar did not work

Second Suggestion .. Tried Desktop X builder ( I have never used DX builder )

Third suggestion .. Force of habit makes me reboot/restart after an uninstall

Philly .. When I right click ..arrange icons by .. and click on that , the second window is greyed out ..

Chaps .. Its 5 am here UK ...please don't think me rude , I have to be driving in a couple of hours .. I just gotta hit the sack ... Please continue to post your suggestions here, I will get them next time I log in ..

Philly0381

on Aug 28, 2008

Philly .. When I right click ..arrange icons by .. and click on that , the second window is greyed out

If that window is totalled greyed out then I would say that you may have something very wrong going on. Minimum you should have the trash bin/can unless you some how deleted it.

I had Fences beta loaded also and uninstalled it, only because there is no close button. It didn't seem to cause any problems.

Just though of something else, in the Windows Task Bar right click in an open space. If there are greyed out items in the menu that comes up click Show Open Windows. If that's not it then you might need to think about any changes you made in the last few days. You will probably wake up in the morning and the answer will come to you. Good luck.

c242

on Aug 28, 2008

Mike : Have the same problem after uninstalling fences.

c242

on Aug 28, 2008

Even dropping new icons on the desktop makes it disappear. Forgot : Vista 32bit here.

c242

on Aug 28, 2008

UPDATE : Re-Installing fences brings up the icons again.

superman

on Aug 28, 2008

nice tale

RomanDA

on Aug 28, 2008

I had the same thing happen when i uninstalled IconPackager, every icon on my quick-launch and desktop was BLANK. The only way i could get them back was to re-install Icon-packager.

BigDogBigFeet

on Aug 28, 2008

What else do you have installed that hides the Desktop? Tweakui? Does Desktop Sidebar have the ability to hide the Desktop? Object Dock Plus?

I'm also beginning to think you may have to try re-installing Fences. I've uninstalled mine now and don't remember the tab, I think it was called Tools. But, it took images of the desktop including the first one being without Fences. The uninstaller asks if you want this stuff removed with Fences. In any case maybe something there will get your icons back?

Maybe JPB will see this.

JMB1984

on Aug 28, 2008

on uninstall of the fences beta, if you're having problems with icons showing, try rebooting, and then unchecking, then re-checking "show desktop icons" for the desktop. the option may get stuck so you may need to do it once or twice. any luck?

ShelbyGT_The_Car

on Aug 28, 2008

Ok here is what I did - first I removed the icons from my fences to the desktop as they would regularly be. Then for each fence I right clicked the open area where the icons where at and choose to delete the fence. After all the fences where deleted I unistalled fences and restarted the computer. During the install it asked if I wanted to restore my settings for my desktop icons - which I did. It also asked if I wanted to save the fences data for what I had setup - I said no and finished the uninstall and restarted the computer. Upon login all my icons where on the desktop where I left them from uninstalling fences. With fences I did not have iconx running; but re-enabled it after the system was restarted and my desktop was back to normal again. Thus no problems and show desktop is functioning properly here.
You may need to re-install fences and remove the icons from the fences before uninstalling. Try that and see...
GT

Philly0381

on Aug 28, 2008

Ah, that's why Fences didn't cause a problem for me, no desktop icons.

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