[azariah007]

Hi everyone, I'm posting for a friend I've already posted about his problem alongside one of the ones I had but pretty certain they're unrelated now.

A little while back his computer stopped saving desktop icons. So every time he restarts anything he's put on the desktop vaporises. Documents, folders, shortcuts, ect. everything in short!!!

In my few years of experience I know that you can set accounts to not saving (or auto reseting) after you logout / shutdown / restart. So question is how do you turn it off!! He's got admin level access and it's been driving him bananas not being able to use his desktop like it should work.

Obviously we are dealing with Vista as you can tell by the forum I've post in.

I'm stilling running XP SP3 so I've got no idea about all the knew "security" (interpret Microsoft imposed usability restrictions) that have been introduced with Vista and Win7.

I think I'm safe in saying that a lot of people wish that Vista was never released. Personally as I'm just getting into all of this and it's a pain in every part of the body having to learn about an OS that should NEVER have been allowed on the streets. Just for the occasional person still hanging around with it installed.

Alright I've had my winge over to you.

[azariah007]

Forgot to add that the reason I think it's a Windows account reset problem is because he's still got the icons that were there before it started happening. Sorry about the winge I couldn't help myself.

[azariah007]

Please help!!!! I haven't been able to find anything myself so someone one here has to know about this sort of thing. I really need to fix this ASAP! PLEASE!!!!!

[DaveA]

As far as I know there is NO built in settings that will do this, unless it is under "Parental Controls", which would NOT allow them to be there to start with.

Tell us more about this system, including, Which version of Vista and what other "Protection" programs are running?

[azariah007]

With pleasure. ;D

A "bonus" six-month subscription for McAfee Antivirus was included with the laptop as the time expired my friend decided to change antivirus programs. Once the subscription ran out McAfee decided to keep bugging him to renew his subscription. So he uninstalled it and then installed a new antivirus program. I'll have to find out which one he has currently.

Around the time when the McAfee subscription ran out this problem started. At around the same time however the computer got a bunch of MS Updates.

(I'll find out what sort of time frame where looking at it might be possible to track down which updates were released at the time.)

However it has been awhile. He's been putting up with the problem for a while, but decided that as seeing as I was around he might as well get me on the case with some fresh eyes. fun! NOT!!!!

And I think you might be right about the Parental Controls. That's what I've heard this function is for. It's so that you can give your kids a login to play games on but all changes they make are reversed on logoff or shutdown. Strange thing is that it's limited to the desktop in this case.

Like I said I'll try to get more info for you. Thanks for helping.

P.S. I would think that he's updated to SP1 or 2 as he is reasonably computer literate. His only problem is with his eyesight which is the main reason he's gotten fed up as any changes he makes to text sizes get reversed. Also one his old computer techs had a PHD in software. He used the laptop a bit back then so he's currently trying to get in touch with him to see if there's anything he did that would cause problems.

[azariah007]

Ok extra info. ;D He is currently running Avast anti-virus www.avast.com and Vista SP 2. Note that Avast was installed after McAfee was uninstalled. So technically at no point was there a conflict between them. Now I don't think I mentioned that McAfee keeps popping up with advertising every now and again. Telling you to update or whatever. This is after it was uninstalled. I did point him to the McAfee uninstaller that seems to fix everyone elses problem with it but he hasn't run it yet. Plus he's going to the US for 2 weeks so I'm not going to be able to do it in the next 2 weeks either.