My friend removed an extra account from his laptop, and now has a blank desktop. I created a desktop toolbar and it is well populated. I also clicked on the 'show on the desktop' options of My Computer and My Documents, but the screen remains devoid of shortcuts. Is there a remedy ? Basty

right clk an empty spot on your desktop and chose to "arange Icons by" and put a tick by the "show desktop icons" Operating Costs = the cost of operating a business Profits = revenues over and above the operating costs. Taxes = operating costs mandated by gov. TaxPayer = what you are called by the gov.

All Windows 9x and up installations have at least two users (user accounts) - Administrator and at least one other user. The Administrator user is only visible in Control Panel - User Accounts, and only available to log on to, when you boot the computer into Safe mode. Was the user (account) he deleted in addition to those? What user is he using now? Is it a new one? All personal settings and data associated with the account he deleted are deleted, including desktop shortcuts, none of the deleted personal stuff shows up in the Recycle bin, and it cannot be recovered by anything built into Windows. If you want to retrieve that stuff, you have to use an Undelete program as soon as you can - the longer you wait, the less you'll be able to get back. If he deleted the only user account other than Administrator, and then made another one, all that personal stuff has been deleted for the user he was using before. ..... "all personal settings and data associated with the account he deleted are deleted" Everything listed in the folder C:\Documents and Settings\(name of the user)\..... after (name of the user), and the (name of the user) folder itself, is deleted. That includes - everything specified to be on the desktop screen - the IE Favorites list - the contents of My Documents and all it's sub folders (My Pictures, etc.) - if the user was using Outlook Express, or Outlook, or many other email programs that install on the computer and can store email on the computer - all the email and email info - etc., etc. ......... When you first use a new user, or one already there that has not been used before, (at least this applies to XP with SP2 updates or later), there are no shortcut icons on the desktop screen for installed programs that didn't come with Windows unless some software has already been installed that has been specified all users can use, and there are no icons for common Windows stuff either. If you want icons for common things like IE, My Computer, My Documents, My Network Places to appear, RIGHT click on a blank part of the desktop screen, choose Properties, Desktop tab, Customize Desktop button, click on the small boxes beside those things to make a checkmark appear, click OK. ........ Even if he is the only user, there may be more than one user listed associated with his user name listed under C:\Documents and Settings\(name of the user). E.g. I've seen both these ones C:\Documents and Settings\(name of the user) and C:\Documents and Settings\(name of the user).(computer name) and sometimes this one as well C:\Documents and Settings\(name of the user~1).(something else), where the name has been chopped off and has ~1 at the end of it. Only one of those has the full personal data content for the user. Don't delete any of them for the same name unless you know what you're doing. If he deleted the wrong one there, if Windows would even let him do that there, all his personal stuff has been deleted. Check to see if his documents are still in My Documents, his Favorites are still there in IE, etc.

The first suggestion is so short (and likely) and the second so comprehensive, that I wont deal with the 2nd till I have tried the first. Since it is my friend's PC, I do not know when that will be. But I WILL return to report or pursue further. Basty

Lurkswithin Thank you so much - it worked like a charm ! Basty