Missing Desktop, Icons, Start Menu

[Guest Cinna]

Hi...I am in need of someone's help before my husband tosses the

computer otta the window. This past week we decided enough is enough

and got high speed internet. My husband's computer is pretty old and

has not had very many if any updates ran so he decided it was time.

After doing updates and restarting the computer he was left staring at

his wallpaper. Everything on the desktop was gone. He is working with

it now through task manager and has ran explorer.exe and found system

restore and backed it up to a few weeks ago. Still nothing. The

computer will not even let him get online so we cannot go to the sites

to download what I have found so far on the web. Any suggestions?

[Guest Malke]

Re: Missing Desktop, Icons, Start Menu

 

Cinna wrote:

>

> Hi...I am in need of someone's help before my husband tosses the

> computer otta the window. This past week we decided enough is enough

> and got high speed internet. My husband's computer is pretty old and

> has not had very many if any updates ran so he decided it was time.

> After doing updates and restarting the computer he was left staring at

> his wallpaper. Everything on the desktop was gone. He is working with

> it now through task manager and has ran explorer.exe and found system

> restore and backed it up to a few weeks ago. Still nothing. The

> computer will not even let him get online so we cannot go to the sites

> to download what I have found so far on the web. Any suggestions?

 

It really is impossible for someone who can't see this machine to give you

focused troubleshooting. My guess is that the computer was not

virus/malware-free since you say it was in a vulnerable state for a long

time.

 

At this point, you'd be best off having a local computer professional take a

look at the machine. Don't use a BigComputerStore/GeekSquad type of place.

The alternative would be to back up your data and do a clean install of

Windows. Do not connect to the Internet until you have installed Service

Pack 3 and an antivirus.

 

http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html - Clean Install How-To

http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Reinstalling_Windows - What

you will need on-hand

 

Malke

--

MS-MVP

Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!

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