missing desktop items after clean up

Hello, I was sent here following a clean up in the Safer Networking forums. After cleaning up
my system all the desktop items and startup menu items were missing. Told me to
link you to the page he helped me in so you would know what he done to help.
please help :]
http://forums.spybot.info/showthread.php?p…ed=1#post406528

It sounds like only one users icons are missing?

This may not work if the temp files have been purged.

Be sure to do this when logged on as the user who is having the problem:

Please open Notepad

• Hold the windows key and then press R to bring up the run box
• Type notepad.exe in the Run Box.
  Copy and Paste everything from the Quote box into Notepad:
  
  

  @echo off
  xcopy %Temp%\smtmp\1\ "%AllUsersProfile%\Start Menu" /e /i /h
  xcopy %Temp%\smtmp\2\ "%UserProfile%\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch" /e /i /h
  xcopy %Temp%\smtmp\3\ "%AppData%\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar" /e /i /h
  xcopy %Temp%\smtmp\4\ "%AllUsersProfile%\Desktop" /e /i /h
  del %0

• Save the file to your DESKTOP as "fix.bat". Make sure to save it with the quotes. Once saved, the icon to click should look like this on your desktop:[external image: Posted Image]
• Double click fix.bat.

Let me know how it goes…

it really do anything. First I noticed the show desktop items option wasn't activated so I clicked on it and some items came up but they're all transparent looking and not all of them where back. So then I did the bat file, clicked on it, and the command prompt came up the disappeared and so did the bat file but nothing on the desktop changed.

Unfortunately, I'm afraid they are gone. There still is one chance though. Do you have a folder on your computer called C:\Qoobox?

I'm betting they have been purged… therefore you will have to rebuild them. Have a look here for directions for restoring the the default ones.

I do believe they were purged in the process of cleaning up the system. Thank you for your help though. I was also sent here because FireFox is running real slow for me now as well. Should I post in the relevant topic or could you help me here?

and I followed the steps in the Tutorial you linked me to and it didn't restore my items at all :[

sargenthomegrown, I've offered everything I know. I'm just a malware guy and I don't have access to a Vista machine to try to figure things out. Hopefully a member of the Tech Team will drop in and be able to help clear things up.

Well thank you for you time sir. And you take care :]

Icons disappearing in vista seems to be quite common and I haven't read of an easy fix if the missing icons are Vista icons. If standard Vista icons are missing (not just program shortcuts) and various attempts to restore them has failed, some system damage may have occurred. I'd save all valuable data to removable storage and then do a reinstall. Either from a Vista disk or using a rescue disk to return the computer back to factory state. Cheers, Lee

One thing you can try before doing a reinstall is to create a new account. See if the normal icons are there. If yes, then you can copy your data from the old, corrupted account, to the new one. Make sure everything is working correctly with the new account then delete the old one.

If that doesn't help you could try doing a Repair Install. If that doesn't fix it then a Clean Install would be needed.

Before doing either install though, make sure you back up your data. A Repair Install should not mess with your data but stuff happens so it's always best to have your data backed up first.

If you don't have a Vista installation DVD then you will need to use the built in Recovery partition if one is present of the Recovery DVD that came with the computer. If you have to do this route, backing up your data is absolutely required or you'll lose it.