I am not able to see any of my icons, start up menu, or programs. I am however able to run programs if i push alt+ctrl+del. Can someone help me? Is this a virus???

Ok, one simple possibility is that you have two monitors running. Goto Start, Run, type "control" and than press enter. Now select Display (if you don't see the Display icon you are running category view which means you need to press that classic view tab on the left side) Now click Settings. If you see two monitors or more and they are not shaded, there probably is your problem (if you see all but one shaded thats normal). Let me know if this is the case because it is a very simple solution from here. Another quick shot, is goto Start, Run, type "msconfig", and click the tab saying DIAGNOSTIC. click apply, restart, and see if your icons are there. If they return after doing this, you surely have a virus or some defunct evil coding. (PS You can get out of the diagnostic mode by going to start, run, msconfig and checking NORMAL STARTUP) NOW, Regardless of all said above, you can follow this security regimen below to have a very very extremely good good chance of finding any coding that was created with evil intention. You run them once and they won't use your resources. The exception is antivirus software and Microsoft's antispyware (you can deactivate MS on start I'll explain later) which actively scans for viruses as you open, view, and anything that can trigger known problems. • Spybot Search and Destroy from http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/ Spybot • Ad Aware from http://www.safer-networking.org/index.php?...p?page=download • Microsoft Anti-Spyware (yes even MS made one) http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx •Avast-Anti-Virus Most IMPORTANT is the virus scanner http://www.avast.com/eng/down_home.html Also you can do a http://windowsupdate.com IF this does not work, you will have to reformat, and you SHOULD follow these common sense downloads above (unless you have comparable programs of course, these work fine the ones I have listed) GOOD LUCK and email me if you have problems, JB

babyjoker, Go to the link below and scroll down to line 195(right column) and download the "Restore Desktop Icons and Taskbar" .vbs file. Save it to your hard drive (you may want to right click and use Save Target As). Double click the vbs file. You will be prompted when the script is done. "NOTE: If your anti-virus software warns you of a "malicious" script, this is normal if you have "Script Safe" or similar technology enabled. These scripts are not malicious, but they do make changes to the System Registry". Restore Desktop Icons and Taskbar Fix Files from the above site are safe to download & run. Tufenuf

That didn't occur to me and I had a very similar problem/solution I encountered a long time ago... Better answer, follow his first. I still recommend you try some of those files. Do not download avast if you have another antivirus program though, can cause conflicts.

(i know a little about computers, but not much so bare with me) Ok let me get a little more specific for those of you trying to help. I have no desktop icons, or start menu. I can not right click or anything. I know for sure that i dont have the dual monitor or else the right click would work. The only way i can run programs is throught the task manager. I ran my virus scan, and it said no viruses were found. I did look in the registry files and noticed two folders "no desktop icons" and "no start menu" and deleted those immediatly and still no luck. I went to the command promt and did "sfc/ scannow" and again still no luck. I am almost absolutaly sure that it is a virus. I heard it was either the f-nimda, smitfraud, or mydoom. I did all the proper virus checks to check if it was one of these and none of these were found. Please help. I apreciate everyones input and ideas.

One more thing. I can not access the internet. the only way to get downloaded programs onto that computer is to download them to another computer, and save the file or program to a usb stick then transfer it over. I can not click on the desktop at all. I did look for more forums last night for the same problem, but everything i tried didnt work. Thanks everyone for helping.

babyjoker, Could you download the possible fix I referenced in Response Number 2 then transfer it to the problem computer and run it? Tufenuf