Missing Icons on my Desktop

Asked By aldrindane 10 points N/A Posted on - 08/30/2011

Every time I turn my netbook on, I can only see the wallpaper.

I can not see any icons.

The start menu and task bar is gone.

It is really blank. I can not use my pc.

How would I fix this?

I can not open any antivirus because there is no icon.

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• Question Category: Windows XP

Best Answer by Ferdinar

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Answered By mykilua2000 0 points N/A #82157

Missing Icons on my Desktop

The strength of the virus or a malware is way too strong based on the way you described it. I may have few options for you;

1. Try to uninstall the antivirus of your netbook from the control panel then install a fresh one during a safemode. If this still won’t work,
2. Try to activate the system restore feature of your netbook.
3. Whenever the worst case scenario happens, the best way to deal with a virus attack this strong is reformat your netbook and install a fresh copy of your operating system.

I hope one of these solutions will solve your problem.

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Answered By Ferdinar 0 points N/A #82156

Missing Icons on my Desktop

There's no solution to recover your desktop in that kind of situation. I had already experienced that when I fixed my neighbor’s desktop. Everything is gone except for the background wallpaper and the Windows Explorer that launches automatically after Windows booted. Mostly, this kind of virus attack is caused by autorun viruses.

This is common to attached in USB flash drives where it hides itself from being viewed normally when accessing with Windows Explorer. It creates a file called autorun.inf and every time the flash drive is inserted in the USB port, it launches automatically without being noticed by the user. It then attached itself to the Windows registry by editing or adding an entry.

Most effect of this virus is creating another folder with a .exe extension. It will make a copy of every folder name it can find and creates each folder with a .exe extension. The original folders are still intact and not deleted, but the virus will make it not visible by editing its properties and hiding it. But the worst that it can do is delete all the files and folders just like what happened in our office’s server.

The only solution I can see here is reformatting your notebook. And try to replace your previous antivirus. If your antivirus is not weak it wouldn’t be intercepted by an autorun worm. I suggest using a Norton Antivirus. Norton Antivirus 2011 is already available in the market today. This is the toughest and most reliable scanner I have ever used. But this is not recommended for slow computers.

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• Posted on - 08/30/2011
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Answered By Recca90 0 points N/A #82158

Missing Icons on my Desktop

Hi Aldrindane

If I base my advice to your problem well, I guess the virus really attacked your OS.

Please do the following to slightly solve your problem.

1. Update your antivirus scanner, probably all the icons are put in hidden to your system.
2. Check your device manager, check if all the software that you installed is still there, how to do it?
3. Go to your "my computer" right click, then click "manage"
4. Click the "device Manager", then check one by one the divers if there are no yellow icon that you can see, it means all the software are working.
5. In your user interface, right click, then point the cursor in "NEW", then click the shortcut.
6. After that, click the shortcut, and then browse the icon that you want to put in your desktop.
7. Then, if ever the result is still the same, go to start button then on the search box, search for the software or icon that you want to put in your user interface, then after finding it, right click, then scan, if you have anti-virus then send it to your desktop.

Hope this can help you.

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• Posted on - 08/31/2011
• Question Category: Windows XP