desktop icons disapearing problems

I hope this is in the rite place.
My desktop icons remove themselves . Only today this has happened. Also I have one folder with more folders inside it on my desktop. I sort my desktop folders by the items that are alike, like messengers, cams, graphics. Well, inside that main folder, there are alot of folders missing. Most of them are gone Also, I created a few desktop icons, just to see if they would just dissapear, and they did !!! They disapeared as soon as I restarted my computer.
I have already ran a search, and the folders are nowhere on my computer. Does my computer have a virus ? Or spyware ? I always run antivirus to check for problems. Why would my folders just delete themselves from my desktop ?

 

Just to make it easier on everyone, what OS are you running and what AV/Anti-Spyware programs are you running ?

 

I have windows xp, and e-trust antivirus and firewall , and spyware guard, and spybot, and ad-aware, and ewido, and probably more I got from this site. And I run them all frequently.

 

Check to see if you have "Customized Desktop" checked.

Right-Click Desktop and go to properties

Click "Desktop" Tab | Click "Customize Desktop" button at the bottom

Check to see what settings are in there and if it is "Cleaning" unused desktop items. I know that you said it does it after you create them, so I am wondering if there is a bug and it is doing it after every hour or so instead of the default 60 days.

let me know if this helps, if not...I'll dig a little deeper

 

Ok I checked, and I had the clean desktop every 60 days checked, so I unchecked it, and under the web tab, I checked the lock desktop box. I have a graphics folder on here, or had one. I remember when it did the 60 day cleanup, because I noticed an unused icons folder on my desktop. That was about a week ago. All these other problems happened just today

 

I think maby I should uncheck the lock icons under the web tab, because they look highlighted now.

 

I mention it because there was discussion about it at annoyances.org and they said there had been a virus that changes the value of the "Clean-Up" in the registry. So it may be checked for 60 days, but it could have been changed internally.

This may not be the problem per say, but a possible solution.

Have you checked the event logs to see if there is something going bonkers?
start | run | EVENTVWR.MSC (or administrative tools through control panel)

 

I just looked at the events, but I really dont understand it. I can put a pic of it here if maby you can understand it.

 

Once the Event Viewer is open, You will see 3 different sections in the left window pane: System, Security, Application (not in this order). Just click one of them to list all the events recorded for that topic. Look in the right window pane for anything with a Yellow ! Sign (looks like hazard sign) and will say "warning". If it just says "Information", then whatever even it was worked fine.

Browse through there and see what you have and let me know

If you find one that concerns you, screenshot it and post it for all to see.

 

ok, aplication has 2 or 3 warnings for todays date, from what i saw anyway, the security doesnt have any warnings, and the system has a few warnings. Let me know what part you need a screenshot of, cause there is alot

 

do a screenshot of the "System" field

Click "System"

do a screenshot that shows a the top several events listed

 

Here is the top. The warnings are on the 15th

 

If you could, scroll down to where there are errors (Warnings or Error) and screenshot that. See how all those say "Information"...that is normal behavior.

 

here is the top error, and the last warnings. There are more warnings way farther down

 

the other

 

Unfortunately, I fear we may be going in the wrong direction with this.

Have you done a full Virus scan and Spyware Scan?

 

yes i have, and i will be back here if anymore of my folders disapear. I would just like to know what happened to some of my folders with my important stuff in them.

 

I will look into this more and update when I find something. Do keep us posted as to the status of the "disappearing folders"

I'm sure you already did, but did you do a full system scan (hidden files included) for the folders you created?

 

How about just trying a Restore, back to before you did what you did.....



Cochise,

 

I thought of something last night. Do you use Active Desktop or have some customized XP Theme?

 

No I do not use active desktop, or any other theme that I know of.
So far today my icons have stayed put. So far that is