Let me start by saying I recently cleaned a virus and a pile of trojans. (Spyware,downloader.Small) ETC... I may have left some components behind. I have experience in getting rid of them, and that isn't the problem. There was a spoof security screen on the desktop background (as an active). I changed the file name which was desktop.html. That action changed my screen to a beige which flickers with mouse movement. When I either right click on the desktop or use control panel, The desktop and theme properties tabs are gone. I have no way to change the desktop properties. I have tried all the basics. System restore tells me it can't restore, no changes were made. I even tried a reinstallation of windows and it did not change it. I really don't want to have to reformat. How can I get those display property tabs back? Any help or info is appreciated. Thank you.

You need to go to the registry editor using regedit and go to: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System if there is a DWORD value such as "NoDispScrSavPage" with a data value of 1 this will disable your screensaver tab, change the value to 0 or delete it and your tab should be back, this works for any of the tabs that might be missing.

Thanks clayton, I will try that. It might help to let others know that the infection was the Win32.Bube virus. It dropped 29 trojans on my machine. I believe that I still have some components that are left behind and reinfect as I connect to the internet. I have my work cut out for me. Any one else that has any other offerings, I will appreciate it. Thanks again Clayton.

i might have a solution for your problems with the trojans and virus, i would recomend you download AVG antivirus for virus problems. Also Adaware and Spybot search and destroy for the trojans, i have recently suffered the same problem you had, and these removed the perpetrators quite nicely

Clayton, I have AVG and it detected the virus W32.bube and also detected 29 trojans and deleted all of them. However, what I hear is that this particular virus can infect explorer and reinfect your machine with an internet connection is present. This is actually what happened to me. It took that blue spoof screen that was my desktop background as I was looking for a way to change it after cleaning the infection. It then changed it to an active desktop (spoof) which warned me of potential spyware. (those nice people). After changing the name of desktop.html for later deletion, it left me with a blank desktop that I can not change due to missing desktop display tabs. Right now I am at work and cant play with the infected comp' until late tonight. I will get back to you with any other findings.

Matt, Another fix for your problem is to go to the link below and scroll down to line 285 right column and download & run the "Restore All Display Tabs" .reg file fix. Save the REG File to your hard disk. Double click it and answer yes to the import prompt. Restore All Display Tabs Fix Tufenuf

Hey Tufenuf, I believe you have helped me before. Before I seen your entry, I made some registry modifications /policy/system. I changed the backgound and appearance values to (1) deleted the "wallpaper" entry. It gave me my tabs back and I was able to change the wallpaper. However, the Active desktop is still there. The "Web" tab in customize desktop option is not there. Will this fix I just downloaded put that tab back? or is there another way to shutdown the Active Desktop? Thanks again, you are a big help. Matt