No icons or start button windows xp

Look at your event viewer to see if you have something logged recently as problematic? I'm not sure how accurate this will be though since you've restored to a past restore point but it's worth a shot. You can also run "msconfig" in this manner and have a look at the startups. Perhaps something fishy or known to be problematic will show up here and can be disabled.

Suspecting a startup application and checking for this possibility, should be done. What did you install or uninstall recently? What did you do or think that may have been done that could be related to or caused this issue? Any recent past problems? Before trying other, more risky, procedures perhaps you better take those steps needed to backup the info, you previously mentioned that you do not wish to risk losing.

It's always better to be safe than sorry. Windows loves throwing surprises at you and any bootup is a risk, particularly since yours seems to be throwing fits at the moment. Hello houli, It's been a few days since you posted this problem. How are coming along on it? Any progress? I have been traveling for work, back tonight will try on Saturday, appreciate the options.

Also, the blank situation occurs with all users on the XP, Admin included. I will run the above cammands in the morning. I really appreciate you all providing me the feedback, that is truly what people are about. I will keep you posted Thanks again. Get answers from your peers along with millions of IT pros who visit Spiceworks. Which of the following retains the information it's storing when the system power is turned off?

Submit ». It sounds like it is failing to load explorer. Also, kill any processes called explorer. You could also restore the system registry hive and that might have helped as well. Thai Pepper. J This person is a verified professional. Verify your account to enable IT peers to see that you are a professional. With support of Nevio webshops. Are your Windows XP Desktop icons missing?

Save time with fewer reboots In a lot of cases you can elaborate this technique a bit and use it to avoid a reboot when you have made modifications in the registry. That will cause the new registry settings to be loaded without the necessity of a reboot. Free Downloads Why Gmail? Taalkeuze Nederlands. You can change the number of programs that are displayed in the frequently-used-programs list.

Once the maximum number of programs in this list is reached, the least frequently used program is replaced by a more frequently used program. The All Programs option is located below the second separator line. When you point to All Programs , you will see shortcuts to all tools, utilities and programs installed on your computer. To launch a particular program or utility, you can navigate through the All Programs menu and select the shortcut that starts it.

Your Start menu may stop working and Desktop icons may not be visible due to one of the following problems:. Depending on the cause of the error, use one of the following methods to resolve the error message.