Lost my Desktop icons

GDudley

My Desktop icons have disappeared. My XP opening screen was a splash screen picture of an island in a blue sea with about 25 of my program icons on it. There was also several small icons along the botton of the screen.
I now get the island/sea with no icons at all, but I get a Desktop list page appear with all of the minature icons on that. I've tried dragging these icons onto the splash screen but the system won't let me.
Also, the Windows/Start key on the keyboard doesn't now do anything so I have to shut-down using the Task Manager (CTRL/ALT/DEL)
Any help would be appreciated.

closed

ctrl alt del, new task, explorer

have you been infected? If you get explorer running, do a scan with malwarebytes

tronator

GDudley wrote: »

My Desktop icons have disappeared. My XP opening screen was a splash screen picture of an island in a blue sea with about 25 of my program icons on it. There was also several small icons along the botton of the screen.
I now get the island/sea with no icons at all, but I get a Desktop list page appear with all of the minature icons on that. I've tried dragging these icons onto the splash screen but the system won't let me.

Right click on your Desktop an select "Show Desktop icons" or however it's called.

GDudley

Thanks for that info guys, I downloaded and ran Malwarebytes but no change. (I already have a paid-for copy of PCTools antivirus running).
When I right-click on the desktop absolutely nothing happens, no drop-down box and no options.
Don't know what else do try at the moment but thanks for your input anyway.

closed

are you getting the start button?

scottishf

what about right clicking on the desktop and click 'refresh'

Orville

GDudley wrote: »

My Desktop icons have disappeared. My XP opening screen was a splash screen picture of an island in a blue sea with about 25 of my program icons on it. There was also several small icons along the botton of the screen.
I now get the island/sea with no icons at all, but I get a Desktop list page appear with all of the minature icons on that. I've tried dragging these icons onto the splash screen but the system won't let me.
Also, the Windows/Start key on the keyboard doesn't now do anything so I have to shut-down using the Task Manager (CTRL/ALT/DEL)
Any help would be appreciated.

Are you running a dual screen setup..? Don't suppose you have activated the other monitor and made it your primary display..?

GDudley

Thanks for the further input guys and in answer to your questions...
There is no START button or any sign of the Task Bar at the bottom of the screen; Right-Clicking doesn't bring up anything at all so I can't "refresh"; I'm just running a single screen pretty ordinary setup.
I'm wondering if I do a "Restore to a previous Restore Point", I did a restore point about 2 months ago and am wondering if this will take me to a good place.
Thanks again to everyone who's tried to help.

phxweb

Sounds to me like the machine is not finishing the log on process.

GDudley wrote: »

I now get the island/sea with no icons at all, but I get a Desktop list page appear with all of the minature icons on that. .

Could you explain the 'Desktop List page' a little bit more

closed

if you ctrl alt del, new task
explorer

do you get a start button

GDudley

Hi Alistaire
I made a mistake, it's the "My Documents" page I get, with File/Edit/View/Favourites/Tools/Help at the top. I can use the up-arrow to take me to the Desktop page and from there to pretty much anywhere else I want to go.
As you say, it does seems like it doesn't finish loading properly. I also don't get the Start bar at the bottom and no selection box when I press the right mouse button on the splash screen.
I have today done a Restore to a time 2 weeks ago when it was working properly but I still have the same problem. I strongly suspect that it could be cured by re-installing Windows but when I put the cd in (about 3 years old) I get the message that the "cd software is older than the installed version" and it won't let me do anything. Maybe because I have downloaded Service Pack 2 in the past?.
Sorry to be so rambling; any idea's what I can try next?