Lost desktop background

Misiowiec · 8 Jul 2006 at 07:23

I did a Search & Distroy spyware scan the other day, and one of the suggested "fixes" said something about removing Active Desktop. Like the muppet I am I clicked yes and am now without a desktop background picture.

Does anyone have an idea how to reverse this? If I try to select a picture it's simply not added as a background.

Iceberg2 · 8 Jul 2006 at 21:13

Misiowiec said:
I did a Search & Distroy spyware scan the other day, and one of the suggested "fixes" said something about removing Active Desktop. Like the muppet I am I clicked yes and am now without a desktop background picture.

Does anyone have an idea how to reverse this? If I try to select a picture it's simply not added as a background.

System restore. Ususally solves all my problems

Iceberg2 · 8 Jul 2006 at 21:14

Misiowiec said:
I did a Search & Distroy spyware scan the other day, and one of the suggested "fixes" said something about removing Active Desktop. Like the muppet I am I clicked yes and am now without a desktop background picture.

Does anyone have an idea how to reverse this? If I try to select a picture it's simply not added as a background.

System restore. Usually solves all my problems

TomaHawk · 8 Jul 2006 at 21:16

Microsoft Windows XP users

1. Open the Control Panel.
2. Open Display Properties.
3. Click the Desktop tab.
4. Click the Customize Desktop button.
5. Click the Web tab in the Desktop Items window.

This should sort it for you!

Win98 - http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=190228

bledd · 9 Jul 2006 at 03:03

Iceberg2 said:
System restore. Usually solves all my problems

thats the source of a lot of problems

Misiowiec · 9 Jul 2006 at 17:09

Makes no difference, I still don't get a background. Any other suggestions?

TomaHawk · 9 Jul 2006 at 17:27

Have you scanned your system with any other Adaware/Spyware cleaners? Maybe worth a try..

What do you currently have as your background? Just a single colour?

Within Spybot S&D it creates Registry back-ups.. Was one of the fixes to your 'active desktop' editing a registry key? If so maybe try recovering the original registry values etc..

Misiowiec · 12 Jul 2006 at 19:42

The thing is I have no spyware; I've done scans with different pieces of software and they all confirm this. The active desktop bit that was removed by Search & Destroy is, I think, a pure Windows thing and I've seen it being listed in Search & Destroy scans on both this and other PCs before.

The thing is that this time I was trying to be clever and pressed "delete" whereas before I just ignored it. I've undone the Active Desktop removal in Search & Destroy and also followed your tips above but it makes no difference - still no desktop background. Any other ideas or do I just wait until the next reformat?