Blue Screen as Desktop

[dawnvk]

My mother who lives in another state (making tech support rather interesting
to say the least..., I'm sure many of you can relate), called yesterday. It
seems her desktop has disappeared. All she has is the start bar at the bottom
- no desktop icons, no desktop picture - nothing but a blue screen. It seems
the rest of the computer is functioning ok. I walked her through right
clicking and sending say Excel to the desktop, but it doesn't work - nothing
appears. I had her update and run spybot - she removed a bunch of spyware,
but still nothing. Her virus protection is AVG 8 Free - it could be a virus,
but if it doesn't catch it, I'm not sure what else to suggest - esp. over the
phone.

Does anyone have any experience with this or ideas?

She's running XP SP 2 (possibly 3, I'm not sure) on an older Dell laptop if
that helps.

Thanks much!
Dawnvk

 

[philo]

My mother who lives in another state (making tech support rather interesting
to say the least..., I'm sure many of you can relate), called yesterday. It
seems her desktop has disappeared. All she has is the start bar at the bottom
- no desktop icons, no desktop picture - nothing but a blue screen. It seems
the rest of the computer is functioning ok. I walked her through right
clicking and sending say Excel to the desktop, but it doesn't work - nothing
appears. I had her update and run spybot - she removed a bunch of spyware,
but still nothing. Her virus protection is AVG 8 Free - it could be a virus,
but if it doesn't catch it, I'm not sure what else to suggest - esp. over the
phone.

Does anyone have any experience with this or ideas?

She's running XP SP 2 (possibly 3, I'm not sure) on an older Dell laptop if
that helps.

Thanks much!
Dawnvk

Have her hit F8 right after the bios message
but before Windows loads

then have her select safe mode

if the machine boots up have her perform a system restore

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/getstarted/ballew_03may19.mspx

 

[jmc]

My mother who lives in another state (making tech support rather
interesting
to say the least..., I'm sure many of you can relate), called yesterday.
It
seems her desktop has disappeared. All she has is the start bar at the
bottom
- no desktop icons, no desktop picture - nothing but a blue screen. It
seems
the rest of the computer is functioning ok. I walked her through right
clicking and sending say Excel to the desktop, but it doesn't work -
nothing
appears. I had her update and run spybot - she removed a bunch of spyware,
but still nothing. Her virus protection is AVG 8 Free - it could be a
virus,
but if it doesn't catch it, I'm not sure what else to suggest - esp. over
the
phone.

Does anyone have any experience with this or ideas?

She's running XP SP 2 (possibly 3, I'm not sure) on an older Dell laptop
if
that helps.

Thanks much!
Dawnvk

How about >> Right-click the desktop, Arrange Icons By, Show Desktop Icons.
Does this work?

 

[Nepatsfan]

My mother who lives in another state (making tech support rather
interesting
to say the least..., I'm sure many of you can relate), called yesterday.
It
seems her desktop has disappeared. All she has is the start bar at the
bottom
- no desktop icons, no desktop picture - nothing but a blue screen. It
seems
the rest of the computer is functioning ok. I walked her through right
clicking and sending say Excel to the desktop, but it doesn't work -
nothing
appears. I had her update and run spybot - she removed a bunch of spyware,
but still nothing. Her virus protection is AVG 8 Free - it could be a
virus,
but if it doesn't catch it, I'm not sure what else to suggest - esp. over
the
phone.

Does anyone have any experience with this or ideas?

She's running XP SP 2 (possibly 3, I'm not sure) on an older Dell laptop
if
that helps.

Thanks much!
Dawnvk

See if the following helps.

Right click on the desktop.
Move the mouse pointer to "Arrange Icons By".
In the menu that pops out, make sure "Show Desktop Icons" is checked.
Click on this entry if it's not checked.

Good luck

Nepatsfan