THE TALE OF THE LOST ICONS

~ ~ A Mysterious Tale of the Unexpected ..

Wednesday, August 27, 2008 by mike b1954 | Discussion: Personal Computing

Just a quickie ... hopefully ...  for starters .. FF... XP SP3 Object Desktop all up to date

Being a user of Desktop Sidebar I have all my quick launch icons in a panel on DS  and usually they are a mirror of what normally are my desktop icons    ~  all working perfectly ... no problems at all ..

In the last few days , though I have had to a lot of admin / office work so I usually , for ease , right click , arrange icons by ... then select SHOW DESKTOP ICONS .. .Which usually come in right away and I can click and run other stuff from those as well as DS  ....

Until Now .. 

When I right click and arrange icons by , the second drop down window ..Name, size, type Show in groups , auto arrange, show in grid etc , is greyed out so clicking there does nothing .. so I cannot get my normal icons onto the desktop ....

For a quick fix , to see if it worked , I opened up Icon X and THERE were all the normal icons ... Just as if I had done it normally ...  except that , when I unload IconX normally from the task bar  the icons WOULD re-appear normally without the Icon x effects ..

But they don't ....  I just get a blank desktop with all my Quick launch icons in DS working normally .. but NO onscreen icons !!!

Weird ..... If anybody has any suggestions please feel free to add them here, as I am totally flummoxed to the nth with this one ..

FYI :  Most recent install was the Impulse Update , and the FENCES beta .. which I uninstalled to see if that was causing the problem ...

And finally -

WindowBlinds version : WindowBlinds 6.2 (build 61 x86)

WindowBlinds is installed correctly on this PC
WindowBlinds appears to be activated on this PC
Your machine supports per pixel borders on WindowBlinds skins.

(Plug and Play Monitor) 1 is attached to NVIDIA GeForce 6200 

Wblind.dll      2008/07/22 10:10:20
Wbsrv.dll      2008/07/22 10:11:10
Wbconfig.exe      2008/07/22 10:10:32
Wbload.exe      2008/02/14 12:05:14
Wbhelp.dll      2007/08/27 11:54:07
Wbui.dll      2007/12/01 17:43:05
Tray.dll           2007/09/12 17:58:21
Screen.exe      2008/06/13 11:24:09

 

 

 

35 Reply 34 Referrals
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Philly0381
Reply #21 Friday, August 29, 2008 12:39 PM
FYI .. I recently installed FF 3.1 On August 20th , would that be the cause of the problem ?


You wouldn't think so, but in the process of elimating all possible causes I would uninstall, see what happens. You can always reinstall.   

mike b1954
Reply #22 Friday, August 29, 2008 12:58 PM
Hi Philly .. I just uninstalled FF and now I am back on IE ...

No change unfortuneately ..  

Thank heavens that I have DS running with my quick launch icons in there !!

( BTW DS can have your Desktop Icons and run them just as they would if they are on the Desktop ! )

Philly0381
Reply #23 Friday, August 29, 2008 1:06 PM
You have probably done this but how about checking Microsoft forums for an answer?   

ShelbyGT_The_Car
Reply #24 Friday, August 29, 2008 1:22 PM
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\policies\Explorer

Mike is there anything at any of these registry locations that says anything like this here
Name: NoDesktop
Type: REG_DWORD
Value: 1
or
Name: HideIcons
Type: REG_DWORD
Value: 1

Also in that program we used there is a registry editor with a very good search feature. Use it and do a search for the names here "NoDesktop" and "HideIcons" to see what comes up for that.
Please do not change anything in regs till I test it here with a backup. Just in case something goes wrong. Would not want to mess things up. OK


mike b1954
Reply #25 Friday, August 29, 2008 3:28 PM
Shelby : Search for the FIRST ITEM :

When I got to to Windows - Desktop It showed this ...

ab(Default value ).... (value not set) size 0

><><><><><><><><><><><><

Search for 2nd ITEM SAME AS ABOVE ..

><><><><><><><>

Search for 3rd ITEM :



<><><><><>

SEARCH FOR 4TH ITEM :



<><><><><><><


As for the next bits .. this is what appeared when I re-clicked On Explorer BUT not Desktop ( THE FIRST SEARCH ..) ~ ~

"DesktopProcess"=dword:00000001
"IconUnderline"=hex(0):03,00,00,00
"Max Cached Icons"="8192"


I hope that all makes sense Shelby

mike b1954
Reply #26 Friday, August 29, 2008 3:42 PM
I gotta get some dinner .. back later !

ShelbyGT_The_Car
Reply #27 Saturday, August 30, 2008 12:32 AM
OK Mike - I put what you have for the NoActiveDesktop and it does change an explorer function.
Plus I'm not sure why it is disabled being it is set for a 1 rather than a 0 the which would enable the explorer function. That or why it is there at all. Being that it does not have to be there.So lets delete some what is called dwords here and see. As seen here in this screenshot. Click for larger image





Then I need to look at this key here. I'm wondering why this is there and a couple of others in this section. But mostly this key





Also go to desktop properties and lets look at what might be setup in that active desktop.
right click desktop go to properties, then desktop and customize desktop, then web tab ;
could you do a screenshot of it if there is anything there. If it is all blank and nothing checked then it is ok.The web tab will not be there if you have yet to remove the regs [dwords] in the first screenshot.


GT  


mike b1954
Reply #28 Sunday, August 31, 2008 12:12 AM
Ok ... I deleted those 3 items ....

took the screey ...:
.

.
.

And then restarted ... No problem ...

I went to display props / customise . web tab ... all that showed is My HomePages unchecked and that was it ....

So out of curiosity ... I thought I would try a right click on the desktop and GUESS WHAT ?
.
.

.
.
The damn icons were there ....! ! ! !

.I don't know what the hell those 3 things I deleted were .... but whatever they were or what they did , now we know !!

Mind you I have not completely turned off but I will shortly ... I just hope the Icons are there tomorrow ...

Shelby , Thanks for the help ...... I truly truly appreciate it , and thanks for taking the time out to do it .... I would buy you a pint , but the local bus does not go that far !!

Philly0381
Reply #29 Sunday, August 31, 2008 12:34 AM
.I don't know what the hell those 3 things I deleted were .... but whatever they were or what they did , now we know !!


Mike, any idea how they got set up? Oh, you did make a restore point, right? Just in case.

This would be a good post to save for future reference.   

mike b1954
Reply #30 Sunday, August 31, 2008 10:12 PM
Mike, any idea how they got set up? Oh, you did make a restore point, right?


Sorry Philly I do not know .. .. wish I did ... !!

~ and MOST DEFINITELY YES ... I did a restore point .... and I am glad to say my Icons were there when I turned on this morning !!         


Cavan1
Reply #31 Sunday, August 31, 2008 11:19 PM
Mike, WB , you may want to uninstall and reinstall it, here are my dates for the same build.


Wblind.dll 2008/07/22 10:10:20
Wbsrv.dll 2008/07/22 10:11:10
Wbconfig.exe 2008/07/22 10:10:32
Wbload.exe 2008/04/28 11:35:14
Wbhelp.dll 2008/04/28 11:35:07
Wbui.dll 2008/04/28 11:35:05
Tray.dll 2008/04/28 11:35:21
Screen.exe 2008/07/22 10:10:09

BigDogBigFeet
Reply #32 Sunday, August 31, 2008 11:55 PM
I have XP SP3 and I'm showing the same as Cavan1.

ShelbyGT_The_Car
Reply #33 Monday, September 1, 2008 7:24 AM
That is good to hear Mike - lets try now and get the system back the way you want it. With your customizations and all. As for that run subkey and what it does is unknown yet. It may have a hkey pointing to it for some function. But leave it till we see a problem. Should not matter too much with a 0 value for that dword.
If you need any other help or experience any other problems - do let me know and we will try to get you fixed up.

mike b1954
Reply #34 Tuesday, September 2, 2008 9:10 PM

Shelby.. I can't thank you enough for helping me there, buddy ... 

 

Come to think about it .. I did install FF3.1 a couple of days before the troubles happened

 ... I still would not have known I had a problem until I needed to  do some office work ... !

Thanks once again ...


AbbeyLehman
Reply #35 Tuesday, November 4, 2008 4:32 PM

[quote who="Shelbygt_the_Car~!" reply="2" id="1855841"]OK Mike - I put what you have for the NoActiveDesktop and it does change an explorer function.
Plus I'm not sure why it is disabled being it is set for a 1 rather than a 0 the which would enable the explorer function. That or why it is there at all. Being that it does not have to be there.So lets delete some what is called dwords here and see. As seen here in this screenshot. Click for larger image

Then I need to look at this key here. I'm wondering why this is there and a couple of others in this section. But mostly this key

Also go to desktop properties and lets look at what might be setup in that active desktop.
right click desktop go to properties, then desktop and customize desktop, then web tab ;
could you do a screenshot of it if there is anything there. If it is all blank and nothing checked then it is ok.The web tab will not be there if you have yet to remove the regs [dwords] in the first screenshot.


GT  [/quote]

 

I really need to see this post, as I am having smiliar troubles, but I cannot see the pictures for some reason?  I could see them fine in the first post that had pics....


Thanks,

Abbey


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