How can I approach this problem??

[luiscm]

I will be honest.. i have always stayed away from w2k.. its just like working with a pretty version of nt (imho). But a friend has a problem and if anyone has any suggestions.. I would greatly appreciate it..

The basic problem is that when his computer starts up and everything is finished loading.. the only thing on his desktop is a wallpaper picture of his dog that he had placed before.. the mouse cursor is active but there is now icons or toolbar nothing.. the resolution is fine since the cursor size is normal.. its like a wallpaper was placed over the desktop and the only thing active is the mouse... I did a c-alt-del to see what was showing and everything seemed fine...

I started the computer in safe mode and everything is still there... he said this occured when he was trying to updtae from 98 to w2k..

I think this might be something simple but I cant quite figure it out.. any ideas.. clues?

Thanks to all

-lui

 

[tsurikov]

Hi lui,

That's some interesting behavior, I've never heard of it. I've seen similarly bizarre behavior, and in the end that usually meant something really obscure is wrong and/or a really radical solution is required. Here are my two suggestions:

1) Check to make sure that all hardware in your computer is Win2K compatible. I had a system giving me wonderful sporadic freezes, hangs, and things like no mouse cursor, all caused in the end by the presence of a modem that was Win2K-incompatible.

2) You mentioned your friend *updated* from Win98 to Win2K, leading me to believe he installed Win2K over Win98. In my experience, it's always best to do a clean reinstall when upgrading an OS, because some old OS garbage can and inevitably will be left behind. That garbage might be causing this. This means, of course, backing up all your user data, reformatting the hard drive, installing Win2K and applications, and replacing your user data. It is a tedious and time-consuming task, but it almost always solves any software problems. I've often avoided this, thinking it took too long, but in the end I spent more time doing other troubleshooting and often didn't arrive at a good solution.

If anyone has any better suggestions, please post them!
Cheers,
--mt

 

[Grenage]

Just to note:

Win2k is in fact a very good operating system (I rate it very highly over 98 and obviously ME), it is always better to do a clean install though as tsurikov commented.

I would personally format the system and do a decent clean install, but you could try the repair funtion.

 

[wolluf]

It may not be running the explorer shell (try starting task manager from Ctrl+Alt+Del then File, New Task (run) to start Explorer. If this works, may be registry problem - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon should include an entert 'Shell' with a value of Explorer.exe.

But agree with previous posters - I'd do a clean install.

 

[luiscm]

Thanks..

As I feared.. the needle in the haystack..
Wollut I will give your suggestions a shot tho..or any others that might come along.. but I am afraid I have to do a clean install..

-Lui

 

[ScorpioX]

I would have to agree with the others. I have found when upgrading from 98 to W2k you loose a lot of the performance tweaks/improvements added to W2k. However as stated, previously if you do not want to start over. Start a new task "explorer.exe" if you do not see your desktop then. Something has either hidden the icons/desktop. Which you can do or there is a registry issue. Which you would have to fix from Safemode. I am guessing however everything has just been hidden either maliciously or by accident.

Good luck,
ScorpioX

 

[CatPlus]

Luiscm:

Or it may just be that SHOW Desktop Icons has been turned off

Right click on your desktop
Select: Active Desktop
Select: Show Desktop Icons

Mickey