Over the past week or so, I have had program icons disappearing from the desktop and start menu, being replaced by the generic Windows box icon. It didn't happen all at once; one icon at a time, here and there. Yesterday , ALL of my Office XP icons on the start menu were replaced with the generic, though none of the ones I had manually placed on the desktop were affected. Paint Shop Pro and Diskeeper icons disappear about every other day from the desktop and I have to manually replace them. Also, in some cases right clicking on properties gives me the opportunity to find the icon; at other times it is grayed out and I have to ditch the generic icon altogether and create a new shortcut. Any suggestions?

Accidently set the option to clean up the desktop and icons automatically?

No -- and maybe describing the icons as "disappearing" isn't quite right - they are just replaced by the "generic" Windows blue and white box icon. They still have the program names under them and the shortcuts still link to the right program.

virus?

I have run Norton 2002 with the latest virus definitions on all drives and nothing was detected.

I have a similar problem. My Icons become black or lost their color. I'm running now Norman-AV, hope he'll find a virus and clean it. If you have any solutions, please reply per e-Mail. Thanx in advance.