How do I restore my personal settings?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Martin Leese
  • Start date Start date
M

Martin Leese

I messed up, and now have the blue screen of
death.

I have an IBM laptop running Windows XP. I
changed the screen resolution and, even
though I go the original resolution back,
when the machine reboots I get a plain blue
screen.

Windows XP fires up, and the user icon is
displayed. Then, when I click on the icon
it says it is loading my personal settings,
but then I get the blue screen.

With the blue screen, the cursor is
displayed and can be moved around. Also,
my anti-virus software (running in the
background) pops up a box asking if it can
update its virus database. So, XP seems to
be running fine. It is just that I am
presented with nothing but a plain blue
screen.

Please, how do I get my personal settings
back?
 
Martin Leese said:
I messed up, and now have the blue screen of
death.

I have an IBM laptop running Windows XP. I
changed the screen resolution and, even
though I go the original resolution back,
when the machine reboots I get a plain blue
screen.

Windows XP fires up, and the user icon is
displayed. Then, when I click on the icon
it says it is loading my personal settings,
but then I get the blue screen.

With the blue screen, the cursor is
displayed and can be moved around. Also,
my anti-virus software (running in the
background) pops up a box asking if it can
update its virus database. So, XP seems to
be running fine. It is just that I am
presented with nothing but a plain blue
screen.

Please, how do I get my personal settings
back?
Click to expand...


System restore to before this happened .
 
Martin said:
I changed the screen resolution and, even though I go the original
resolution back, when the machine reboots I get a plain blue
screen.

Windows XP fires up, and the user icon is displayed. Then, when I
click on the icon it says it is loading my personal settings, but
then I get the blue screen.
Click to expand...

Can you still boot into Windows' safe mode and then login okay?
 
VanguardLH said:
Can you still boot into Windows' safe mode and then login okay?
Click to expand...

Yes, I can boot into safe mode (I had
forgotten about that). In safe mode, I
successfully restored to about a week before
this happened, but no change.

I also checked my screen resolution, as that
seemed to be what started this. However, in
safe mode this is only 800 by 600 pixels,
and cannot be changed.

In safe mode, how do I change the screen
resolution when not in safe mode?
 
Martin Leese said:
I messed up, and now have the blue screen of
death.

I have an IBM laptop running Windows XP. I
changed the screen resolution and, even
though I go the original resolution back,
when the machine reboots I get a plain blue
screen.

Windows XP fires up, and the user icon is
displayed. Then, when I click on the icon
it says it is loading my personal settings,
but then I get the blue screen.

With the blue screen, the cursor is
displayed and can be moved around. Also,
my anti-virus software (running in the
background) pops up a box asking if it can
update its virus database. So, XP seems to
be running fine. It is just that I am
presented with nothing but a plain blue
screen.

Please, how do I get my personal settings
back?
Click to expand...

What personal settings are you talking about? Desktop color/picture? Right
click the desktop,select "Properties" and see if one of the saved themes is
what you want. If not you can rebuild them from the various tabs.

If not the desktop stuff and if one of the automatic registry backups
predates the problem, you could restore that registry, Google for the
methodology. That would also put back your desktop settings.

--

dadiOH
____________________________

Winters getting colder? Tired of the rat race?
Taxes out of hand? Maybe just ready for a change?
Check it out... http://www.floridaloghouse.net
 
Martin said:
Yes, I can boot into safe mode (I had
forgotten about that). In safe mode, I
successfully restored to about a week before
this happened, but no change.

I also checked my screen resolution, as that
seemed to be what started this. However, in
safe mode this is only 800 by 600 pixels,
and cannot be changed.

In safe mode, how do I change the screen
resolution when not in safe mode?
Click to expand...

If safe mode works okay, next is to disable all startup items and
reboot into normal mode. In safe mode, run msconfig.exe and disable
all items under the Startup tab. Then reboot into normal mode.
 
VanguardLH said:
If safe mode works okay, next is to disable all startup items and
reboot into normal mode. In safe mode, run msconfig.exe and disable
all items under the Startup tab. Then reboot into normal mode.
Click to expand...

No need; problem solved. As I suspected,
the problem was that I had selected a higher
screen resolution. It turns out that I was
presented with a plain blue screen because
the Start button, Taskbar, and program icons
had all been pushed off the screen.

The solution was trivial, and was suggested
by dadiOH; right-click anywhere on the blue
screen, and then select:
Properties => Settings => Screen resolution

I am not sure why I couldn't think of this.
I guess when I was faced with what appeared
to be a blue screen of death, I panicked. I
am also puzzled why the system restore
didn't restore the screen resolution.

Anyway, many thanks to VanguardLH and dadiOH
for leading me to the point where I could
see the problem.
 
dadiOH said:
message news:[email protected] ....

What personal settings are you talking about? Desktop color/picture? Right
click the desktop,select "Properties" and see if one of the saved themes is
what you want. If not you can rebuild them from the various tabs.

If not the desktop stuff and if one of the automatic registry backups
predates the problem, you could restore that registry, Google for the
methodology. That would also put back your desktop settings.
Click to expand...

Problem solved; please see other post for
details.
 
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