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Solved: Desktop is Hidden when other Windows are In the Foreground

1K views 2 replies 2 participants last post by  Ringo486 
#1 ·
I'm at a bit of a loss for how to properly describe this, but I'm hoping an XP guru will be able to sort out my desktop woes.

Essentially, my desktop (icons and background) is hidden if I bring any window into the foreground. Almost as if my desktop wasn't really a desktop, but a window that self-minimizes as soon as it's not the active window.

When this happens, the start menu bar remains.
If I right click on the bar, and choose "show desktop", my desktop will be restored, that is, until I open a window, or restore a minimized application.

The screen will just be blue, and will not respond to right clicking.
If I close a window, the start bar will also vanish, but I can get it back temporarily by pressing the windows key.

It's almost like I have an "always on top" application of solid blue forcing it's way on top of everything all the time.

Now, when this happens:
The explorer.exe task is still alive.
I have checked "show desktop icons".

Any ideas?
 
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#3 ·
Thanks Tufenuf, I did have all those boxes unchecked, but I somehow fixed my problem anyway.

Apparently my printer driver was generating this bogus overlay...
I found out by randomly killing unessential processes till one named hp[something].exe running from my temp directly got killed.

Then I killed all files in my temp directory.

My printer assistant no longer loads up, but that's alright, as long as it's not doing weird mumbo jumbo to my desktop.
 
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