Can't make any changes in "Appearance" tab

[twstar]

Hello friends
I've got an Athlon 1.2 system running Win98SE. Suddenly Win doesn't accept any changes I make in the appearance tab (Video / Properties), so I have to keep the last scheme I've chosen... Any clues? What is the file that holds the information for the appearance of the desktop?
Thank you for your advice

 

[nightowl17]

Try reinstalling the drivers for the Video card ,Might be your problem

 

[twstar]

Re-installing the video drivers sounded like a good idea, but unfortunately it didn't work... any other clues?
Thanks
ARNALDO

 

[Grapegravy]

The Desktop appearance files are held with the user profile folders, run system file checker first to make sure your sys files are working properly, if you don't already know how, go to Start,,,Run,,, and type in sfc then enter, then let it do it's thing, if it prompts you about corrupt files, restore them, your user.exe file may be corrupt which would cause this problem, restore it form a floppy or cd, or even the precopy section of your harddrive installation of windows, good luck

 

[twstar]

Unfortunately it also didn't work... is there any other path to this problem?
Thank you very much

 

[Grapegravy]

Darn, thought that would do it, have you tried completely reinstalling the video card? Remove it completely from the computer under the Device Manager and then reboot, reinstall drivers, and resetup your desktop appearance settings. Do I have this correct? You aren't able to apply changes in the display properties dialog box? Is the apply button un-clickable?

 

[twstar]

I've tried to do what Grapegravy suggested, and yet had no results... I can't apply changes in the display properties dialog box (Desktop - mouse right button - properties - appearance). When I make the changes and press the "Apply" or "OK" buttons, the mouse cursor changes to busy and nothing else happens until I press CTRL+ALT+DEL and end "Video Properties" task. The appearance remains the same. All other tabs (Settings, Screen Saver, etc.) work perfectly...
Any other ideas?
THank you very much

 

[rwise2112]

Try this:
[ol]
[li]Rename the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\DESK.CPL file
[li]Run SFC and extract the DESKW95.CPL file into the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM folder
[li]Rename the DESKW95.CPL file to DESK.CPL
[li]Reboot and test
[/ol]

If you need more detailed instructions, just ask.

 

[twstar]

Unfortunately this too didn't work... this is really strange, isn't it? Could it be that the file that contains the colour schemes for Win98 (not the chosen ones, but all of them) is corrupted?
Thank you very much
ARNALDO

 

[Guest_imported]

Have you installed microsoft netmeeting, if so disable it as this can prevent you from making changes, make your changes then start it up again. If you have not, use ctrl-alt-delete to shut everything down except system and explorer and try and make changes.