[cajun1957a]

In the last two days i have seen three systems with the desktop icons flashing on and off. You are unable to do anything because the whole screen disapears and when it returns the task you attempted to start has stopped. I have tried in Safe mode as well. Using windows XP restore wont work either. Is the a virus? I am a computer tech and have never experienced this before. The only solution i have found is to reinstall Xp Pro. Also of the three system, all stated that they had just finished an update. One was with Norton System works 2004 and one with MS update. The other was unsure. All have Service Pack 2 as well. The third machine has a variant of the above problems in so much as it will not allow you to activate any system command. ie. Restore, control panel, my computer etc. It is a slow system and hence the flashing is not as quick yet in safe mode it appears to be the same problem. Please help.

Cajun

[mattprice]

I have the same problem on my desktop. I just got yesterday, and im trying to figure out how to get rid of it without reinstalling windows. it didnt start doing it until i installed an update for xp. Please help!

[jmc]

Take a look at the thread "after windows update, taskbare [sic] gone". Sounds like the same thing, perhaps. I rebuilt my profile, and all is well with my system now - but I'm running Windows 2000Pro.

[rezt0ne]

the icons are disappearing because the explorer.exe process is being terminated and windows is automatically restarting the process wich means will just go on forever. the only way i found to stop it is to terminate the process yourself in taskmanager before it can do it itself. but this doesnt help at all because you still wont be able to start any program such as system restrore. the only exe i could run was cmd.exe and that was only useful wen i acciedentaly terminated svchost.exe and computer tried to shutdown. also it happened for me straight after a windows update was installed? do you know which update caused this? as mine was done automatically didnt see.