Stupid Freaking Thing

[Shlup]

In Windows XP, when I right-click on the desktop and go to "Properties," you know how it's supposed to have tabs for "Screen Saver" and "Appearance" and stuff? Mine doesn't now for some reason. It's making me sad. When I open the properties, all it has is "Display Properties" that give me options for the overall theme of Windows. It makes me sad. ;_;

Any ideas how to fix it, short of reformatting?

[Cid]

Do you have a program like Windowbindz installed? I have problems when I press cntr-alt-delete... I can't see the tabs. I blame it on windowbindz.

[m4tt]

I have "WindowBlinds" installed and I don't have either of those problems.. Maybe you have some sort of virus?

[Cid]

Oh, when you go to display though, you can press tab and bounce around and select the invisible tabs. It's a pain, but do-able.

[Shlup]

I don't even know what WindowBlinds is.

And I have a virus. Which refuses to go away. ;_;

EDIT: I can click the invisible tabs, as Sean said... And I think I may have gotten rid of the virus after running AVG, SpyBot, AdAware, DSOstop, and deleting a few things.

[Baloki]

You need to download something called poledit off mircrosoft.com which will allow you to restore those tabs

[Shlup]

I didn't get any search results on microsoft.com for "poledit".

[crono_logical]

Cid: For your ctrl-alt-del problem, you probably need to double click the border of the task manager to take it out of that minimal window mode "feature"

I don't think that would work for Shlup's problem though You could create a new Administrator account, and see if it's fixed in there. If it is, then yes, it's a policy problem as Baloki was trying to hint towards but not say very clearly. Yes, it's possible that a virus has gone and changed those policy settings for you, so get rid of it first If you have XP Pro though, don't bother get Poledit, since that's replaced by the Group Policy Editor, which you can access by going to Start > Run and typing "gpedit.msc".

[Baloki]

Cid: For your ctrl-alt-del problem, you probably need to double click the border of the task manager to take it out of that minimal window mode "feature"

I don't think that would work for Shlup's problem though You could create a new Administrator account, and see if it's fixed in there. If it is, then yes, it's a policy problem as Baloki was trying to hint towards but not say very clearly. Yes, it's possible that a virus has gone and changed those policy settings for you, so get rid of it first If you have XP Pro though, don't bother get Poledit, since that's replaced by the Group Policy Editor, which you can access by going to Start > Run and typing "gpedit.msc".

Thats true that is *nods*

[Cid]

Bingo!

[Shlup]

I don't think that would work for Shlup's problem though You could create a new Administrator account, and see if it's fixed in there. If it is, then yes, it's a policy problem as Baloki was trying to hint towards but not say very clearly. Yes, it's possible that a virus has gone and changed those policy settings for you, so get rid of it first If you have XP Pro though, don't bother get Poledit, since that's replaced by the Group Policy Editor, which you can access by going to Start > Run and typing "gpedit.msc".

Virus is gone, and when I run gpedit.msc it opens the Group Policy Editor, but what do I do once it's open?

[Baloki]

Virus is gone, and when I run gpedit.msc it opens the Group Policy Editor, but what do I do once it's open?

You need to go through every option (Until Farah/Archie gets on and tells you the each one) and look for a display setting, or one that restricts it

[Shlup]

I looked through it briefly and didn't understand what the heck it was saying.

[Dr Unne]

Only real way to be sure a virus is gone is to reformat. If you aren't willing to do that, be prepared for random destruction in the future. If you'd reformatted / reinstalled in the first place, you'd already be done with all this, and you'd also have a nice new fast install of Windows. It's just not worth the trouble of trying to "fix" Windows. Backup your user directory and reinstall Windows, it takes two or three hours and for at least half that time you don't even have to be in the room, it goes by itself.

[Shlup]

I did it like two weeks ago is why I don't wanna do it again. Backing up my files and reinstalling my programs is a pain.

I already converted from IE to Firefox, Unners. What more do you want from me? :weep: