Re: Restore Desktop

dkisling wrote:

>
> How to I restore a previous desktop? I have an empty theme background
> with no icons whatsoever after using onecare tune up and installation of
> latest security update and restart.I used the installation disk to run
> system restorebut didn't cure problem. I had just installed SP2 for
> Vista too.
>
>

I assume that the OneCare "tune up" was a registry cleaner of sorts. I don't
care *who* makes it, don't use a registry cleaner again.

http://aumha.net/viewtopic.php?t=28099 - registry cleaner thread

Your user profile has become corrupted. You need to create a new account and
copy the data from the corrupted account to it. This requires a certain
level of computer skills. You know yourself best and can determine if a
better course of action would be to take the machine to a competent local
computer tech. If you decide to do the latter, I don't recommend using a
BigComputerStore/GeekSquad type of place.

1. Log into another user account with administrative privileges. (If you
don't have one, please post back and I'll give you the steps to fix this.)

2. Go to Control Panel>User Accounts and create a new user account for your
daily work. Make it a Standard user. (See the end of this post for general
information about users in Vista.)

3. Log into your new Standard user account once and then log back out into
the Administrative account. Copy all the data from your old, corrupted
account to the new one you just made. Obviously just OK the UAC prompts
when you navigate to the old account's data. Don't forget Favorites,
Bookmarks (Firefox), email, things you might have stored on your Desktop.

4. Log out and into your new Standard user account. Make sure everything is
the way you like. Then you can delete the corrupted user account from the
User Accounts applet in Control Panel.

General information about user accounts in Vista - You absolutely do not
want to have only one user account. Like XP and all other modern operating
systems, Vista is a multi-user operating system with built-in system
accounts such as Administrator, Default, All Users, and Guest. These
accounts should be left alone as they are part of the operating system
structure.

You particularly don't want only one user account with administrative
privileges on Vista because the built-in Administrator account (normally
only used in emergencies) is disabled by default. If you're running as
Administrator for your daily work and that account gets corrupted, things
will be Difficult. It isn't impossible to activate the built-in
Administrator to rescue things, but it will require third-party tools and
working outside the operating system.

The user account that is for your daily work should be a Standard user, with
the extra administrative user (call it something like "CompAdmin" or "Tech"
or the like) only there for elevation purposes. After you create
"CompAdmin", log into it and change your regular user account to Standard.
Then log back into your regular account.

If you want to go directly to the Desktop and skip the Welcome Screen with
the icons of user accounts, you can do this:

Start Orb>Search box>type: netplwiz [enter]
Click on Continue (or supply an administrator's password) when prompted by
UAC

Uncheck the option "Users must enter a user name and password to use this
computer". Select a user account to automatically log on by clicking on the
desired account to highlight it and then hit OK. Enter the correct password
for that user account (if there is one) when prompted. Leave it blank if
there is no password (null).

Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/#FAQ