Not too serious but I’ve invested in a new PC (Compaq Presario) Pentium 4 that came with Windows XP Home Edition installed. Having suffered the pitfalls of Windows ME for 2 years, it’s a refreshing change! Anyway, I reinstalled all the software and stuff from my previous PC and it’s working fine. The only problem is, for some reason, from time to time, any website shortcuts I have on my desktop lose their adopted icons and just leave the icons as the blue explorer. Also, when booting up, it takes a while for all my desktop icons to populate rather than immediately displaying. I’ve run a virus scan, Spybot, Ad-aware and I’ve defragmented my hard drive. Any ideas? Thanks.

Remove all your desktop icon except recycle bin and I have "my computer" on the desktop. Drag and drop all your favourite icon into the quick launch bar at the bottom of your screen and then delete the shortcut that remains on your desktop. Having icons on your desktop uses memory and in doing so slows your pc down. If you cant drag and drop some of your icons right click on them and pin them to start menu. Then if you want to access them just push start and go straight to the program or file you want. For more ways to speed up your pc or speed up your start up got to www.blackviper.com Steve

Cheers Steve. Will try that tonight when I get home.

You could also try right clicking on the desktop and select new folder. This will put another folder on your desktop and you can name it anything you want. For instance I made a folder and named it games, then dragged my desktops icons for my games into the new folder. I made a folder and named it my software and then dragged the icons for various software that I use into it. This cleaned up my desktop - I am not sure if it speeded anything up.

ArthurLee, Your Iconcache.db file may have become corrupted thus causing the icon problem you're having. To rebuild the Iconcache.db file do either of the following: 1. Start your Computer in SAFE mode then restart it in Normal mode. This will recreate the Iconcache.db file. 2. Re-create the Iconcache.db file. This file is re-created automatically when you change your display's color depth. Follow these steps to change your display's color depth to a new setting and then change it back to the original setting: Right-click the desktop and then click Properties. Click the Settings tab. Change the color depth from the current setting to a new setting. For example, change from Highest (32 bit) to Lowest (16 bit). Click Apply, and then click Yes to accept the changes. Change the color depth back to its original setting. Click Apply, and then click Yes to accept the changes. Hope This Helps, Tufenuf

Thanks for your help. Unfortunately, after checking my system, I have discovered that my Internet Explorer homepage has been hijacked and no matter what I change the homepage to, within minutes (literally), it reverts to ‘about:blank’ that brings up a search website with annoying popups. I believe this is a CoolWebSearch kind of thing. I’m certain that this is slowing down my startup and my system! I know that the about:blank hijack trojan/worm/virus is well documented on these forums so I’d best put a few hours aside, upgrade my CW Shredder, my Spybot, my Norton Antivirus, my Ad-aware and my SpywareBlaster then get down to some serious fighting!! I’ll do that when I get home from work tonight because, reading between the lines, I don’t think there’s a quick fix for this problem. I hate hijackers. Hey ho!