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KeithnFW

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 11, 2007
32
5
So my Windows XP Home is working fine for several months now. Until today. I log on and everything is fine. Then after about 1 minute, all my desktop icons disappear along with the taskbar. Everything except my desktop background. WTF? Any ideas?
 

MacDawg

Moderator emeritus
Mar 20, 2004
19,823
4,503
"Between the Hedges"
Hope you get some positive thoughts here... but you are likely to endure a LOT of Windows banter and ridicule around it

Did you restart?

Woof, Woof - Dawg
pawprint.gif
 

mkrishnan

Moderator emeritus
Jan 9, 2004
29,776
15
Grand Rapids, MI, USA
What is "happening" is that Explorer is crashing. Behavior is very analogous to OS X (if finder crashes, the desktop icons and dock disappear, and then they reappear when Finder restarts automatically).

Is explorer restarting -- that is, do the icons and taskbar come back? If not, why it is unable to automatically restart is one of the questions, and of course the other is what is making Explorer crash in the first place.

Did you install any background utilities or anything that lives in the system tray recently?
 

KeithnFW

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 11, 2007
32
5
What is "happening" is that Explorer is crashing. Behavior is very analogous to OS X (if finder crashes, the desktop icons and dock disappear, and then they reappear when Finder restarts automatically).

Is explorer restarting -- that is, do the icons and taskbar come back? If not, why it is unable to automatically restart is one of the questions, and of course the other is what is making Explorer crash in the first place.

Did you install any background utilities or anything that lives in the system tray recently?

I have sat for about 2 minutes and nothing comes back. And as far as I can recall I have not installed anything the last 2 weeks in windows mode. One thing it does do, if I have a program running, that program will be fine as long as I don't minmize it. If I do it's gone with everything else that disappeared. Very strange. . . to not have any problems after 4 months and now all of a sudden, this.
 

KeithnFW

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 11, 2007
32
5
Update. . .

I misspoke when I said I had not installed anything. Yesterday I plugged in my new Apple wireless keyboard. That seems to be what was causing the problem. I plugged the old keyboard back in and Windows never had one problem. . .nothing disappeared. So the wireless keyboard was $80 well spent. Thanks to all who replied with suggestions.
 
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