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 2)

mike b1954

on Aug 28, 2008

GT : Thanks for the tips, which I tried and retired thoroughly but I still did not have any success ..

FYI .. I never got as far as even selecting an icon to deag into the fence , so to speak ...

Philly .. Usually when I am using DS there are no icons on screen at all , when I need them , I would bring them up as everyone else does .. but they don't ...wierd for sure ..

Big Dog :

Does Desktop Sidebar have the ability to hide the Desktop? Object Dock Plus?

No to both .. as for Object dock , I am ashamed to admit that I haven't used it at all since I discovered Rocket Dock ...

The fences installer did indeed take a snapshot but on exit unistall no luck there either ...

BigDogBigFeet

on Aug 28, 2008

Do you have more than one User Account? If so what's up with any other User Account?

mike b1954

on Aug 28, 2008

BigDog : Nope Just me ... No other users

BigDogBigFeet

on Aug 29, 2008

How about adding one to see is the Desktop icons (default ones) show up there. If not your OS is likely hosed. If they do show up there then you can try unloading all your modding software and rebooting to see if that clears up your main account.

Do you use restore points if so you can also try rolling back to earlier this month.

mike b1954

on Aug 29, 2008

Hi BigDog & good day to all !

Right , ~ I tried a restore all the way back to 21 August .. No change , unfortuneately ...
also , after a fair bit of fiddling about , I uninstalled all modding software ( windows classic sux!), ... No icons ..then reinstalled .. no icons ...

Shelby .. I got your PM thanks ... Just tried adding a new admin account .. guess what .. No change ..

The more I think about it , I believe it is definitely a registry setting that has somehow turned itself off .. but which one ? !

FYI .. I recently installed FF 3.1 On August 20th , would that be the cause of the problem ?

Philly0381

on Aug 29, 2008

FYI .. I recently installed FF 3.1 On August 20th , would that be the cause of the problem ?

You wouldn't think so, but in the process of elimating all possible causes I would uninstall, see what happens. You can always reinstall.

mike b1954

on Aug 29, 2008

Hi Philly .. I just uninstalled FF and now I am back on IE ...

No change unfortuneately ..

Thank heavens that I have DS running with my quick launch icons in there !!

( BTW DS can have your Desktop Icons and run them just as they would if they are on the Desktop ! )

Philly0381

on Aug 29, 2008

You have probably done this but how about checking Microsoft forums for an answer?

ShelbyGT_The_Car

on Aug 29, 2008

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\Explorer

Mike is there anything at any of these registry locations that says anything like this here
Name: NoDesktop
Type: REG_DWORD
Value: 1
or
Name: HideIcons
Type: REG_DWORD
Value: 1

Also in that program we used there is a registry editor with a very good search feature. Use it and do a search for the names here "NoDesktop" and "HideIcons" to see what comes up for that.
Please do not change anything in regs till I test it here with a backup. Just in case something goes wrong. Would not want to mess things up. OK

mike b1954

on Aug 29, 2008

Shelby : Search for the FIRST ITEM :

When I got to to Windows - Desktop It showed this ...

ab(Default value ).... (value not set) size 0

><><><><><><><><><><><><

Search for 2nd ITEM SAME AS ABOVE ..

><><><><><><><>

Search for 3rd ITEM :

<><><><><>

SEARCH FOR 4TH ITEM :

<><><><><><><

As for the next bits .. this is what appeared when I re-clicked On Explorer BUT not Desktop ( THE FIRST SEARCH ..) ~ ~

"DesktopProcess"=dword:00000001
"IconUnderline"=hex(0):03,00,00,00
"Max Cached Icons"="8192"

I hope that all makes sense Shelby

mike b1954

on Aug 29, 2008

I gotta get some dinner .. back later !

ShelbyGT_The_Car

on Aug 30, 2008

OK Mike - I put what you have for the NoActiveDesktop and it does change an explorer function.
Plus I'm not sure why it is disabled being it is set for a 1 rather than a 0 the which would enable the explorer function. That or why it is there at all. Being that it does not have to be there.So lets delete some what is called dwords here and see. As seen here in this screenshot. Click for larger image

Then I need to look at this key here. I'm wondering why this is there and a couple of others in this section. But mostly this key

Also go to desktop properties and lets look at what might be setup in that active desktop.
right click desktop go to properties, then desktop and customize desktop, then web tab ;
could you do a screenshot of it if there is anything there. If it is all blank and nothing checked then it is ok.The web tab will not be there if you have yet to remove the regs [dwords] in the first screenshot.

GT

mike b1954

on Aug 31, 2008

Ok ... I deleted those 3 items ....

took the screey ...:
.

.
.

And then restarted ... No problem ...

I went to display props / customise . web tab ... all that showed is My HomePages unchecked and that was it ....

So out of curiosity ... I thought I would try a right click on the desktop and GUESS WHAT ?
.
.

.
.
The damn icons were there ....! ! ! !

.I don't know what the hell those 3 things I deleted were .... but whatever they were or what they did , now we know !!

Mind you I have not completely turned off but I will shortly ... I just hope the Icons are there tomorrow ...

Shelby , Thanks for the help ...... I truly truly appreciate it , and thanks for taking the time out to do it .... I would buy you a pint , but the local bus does not go that far !!

Philly0381

on Aug 31, 2008

.I don't know what the hell those 3 things I deleted were .... but whatever they were or what they did , now we know !!

Mike, any idea how they got set up? Oh, you did make a restore point, right? Just in case.

This would be a good post to save for future reference.

mike b1954

on Aug 31, 2008

Mike, any idea how they got set up? Oh, you did make a restore point, right?

Sorry Philly I do not know .. .. wish I did ... !!

~ and MOST DEFINITELY YES ... I did a restore point .... and I am glad to say my Icons were there when I turned on this morning !!

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