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No Desktop icons, no task bar

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Windows 98 launches but no desktop icons & no task bar appear; only the Background [Clouds] appears. Prior to this problem:
1.The user was changing the desktop display settings, then this problem started;
2. the PC recently had the kak worm/virus
which had been fixed/removed via Norton AntiVirus.
I’ve tried booting in Safe Mode. Same problem occurs. Help!

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No Desktop icons, no task bar

In reply to No Desktop icons, no task bar

If no icons or taskbar are showing up, then theres a problem with the Explorer shell. Changing the desktop display should not have affected this, but the virus could have. I would recommend that you do a reinstall of Win98, that would be really the only logical way to solve this problem. Also make sure you format the disk to help insure that the virus is no longer there.

No Desktop icons, no task bar

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No Desktop icons, no task bar

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The KAK.hta virus is a worm that makes it so you’ll have trouble logging onto your computer at a set date of the month. If this is a repeted problem where you are unable to bring up any icons or the task bar, two things may be happening..

1- Your computer may have a faulty shell which isn’t allowing it to boot or bring up the icons properly.

2- Your computer may be locking up when your trying to get into windows.

Do you log onto your computer? Meaning, do you put in a username and password when finally do get into windows?
Try booting into safe mode and see if it has the same problem. Safe mode will allow you to boot up without any drivers or anything. If you do log into windows… try replacing either your client for microsoft networks or your Microsoft family logon.

Hope that helps.

No Desktop icons, no task bar

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No Desktop icons, no task bar

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I would agree that this is a shell problem. One think I remmeber once happening was the person somehow set the option to display the backgroup as a webage without any icons, so this may be what you’re looking at. You should be able to restore the defaults in the web settings to clear that.

Before I would go reinstalling windows, I would rename the shell32.dll and explorer.exe and extract new ones from the cab files (either on CD or off the HD is they’re there) and copy those to their respective places.

Good luck to you

Mark

No Desktop icons, no task bar

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No Desktop icons, no task bar

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re: icons
right click on the desktop, and go to properties. go to the web tab, and make sure that active desktop, and view as a web page are all turned off.

re: taskbar.
press the windows key, or control+escape, to get the start menu up. selectsettings>taskbar. make sure that auto-hide is NOT checked, and always on top IS. look for a thin grey line around one side of the screen. Hover the mouse pointer over the line and when it turns into a double ended arrow, click and drag to pull the taskbar out a bit, one level, or “nothc” should be enough. Then, if it is on a side of the screen where you don’t want it, click and drag the middle of the bar to poll it to the edge of the screen you want it in.

No Desktop icons, no task bar

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