i'm not sure what you mean by a swirl, but may be your color resolutions is
not suitable.
Click on Start, Control Panel, click on Display, click the Settings tab.
check your color quality.. make sure it's above 256 colors (many
applications will not look good with 256). for e.g. set it to 16 bits.
or may be you were running an application that did something nasty to your
display.. if that's the case, close that progrma, and try rebooting your
machine.
It does not seem to be the color setting. When I go to
graphics and look a the color on the Intel Graphics
Controller, it shows a color pattern next to the gamma
gradient. That's as close as I can find to something that
shows the colors I see on the desktop and applications.
It sounds as though it has a wallpaper of its own and placed it on your
desktop. I assume you can see all your icons and shortcuts. If yes, open
Control Panel, open Display,
go to Desktop, click "none" in the list, click apply and OK.