no taskbar or desktop icons

[selina]

one of my users is getting blank blue screen after logon. she doesn't see task bar. she can't right click.
remotely, i can see that she's logged on like she's supposed to.
she's on win xp sp1.

anyone has any idea of fixing this? reinstalling win would be the last thing i would do.....

 

[brady]

stop and restart "explorer.exe" through the task manager.

 

[selina]

i did that when i logged in as an admin remotely. but when she logged back on, the problem was still there.
and her right-clicking doesn't do anything at all. so she can't get task manager....

 

[brady]

Rename the local profile... ex: user.name.old.4.6.2006
log off then log back in using the users login.
This will rebuild the local profile and the problem will be fixed.
After the user is logged back in, you will need to copy over the "Desktop, My Documents and Local Settings folders" from the user.name.old.4.6.2006 profile.

This only takes but a minute or 2.

 

[selina]

this could be a dumb question....
she's logged on using roaming profile. can i still rebuild her profile in the same way?

 

[brady]

For this situation, it is good practice to rename both... If the local profile was corrupted the corrupted information would be sent to the roaming profile on "login or logoff" or Vice Versa.

In this situation, I would normally login with an "Admin" account and reset the local profile first, then login to the fileserver to rename the roaming profile 2nd.

Once that has been completed, I would have the user log back in, and check the RP (roaming profile) directory for the newly created roaming profile.

 

[selina]

hi.
these are the parts i didn't understand how to do:

In this situation, I would normally login with an "Admin" account and reset the local profile first, then login to the fileserver to rename the roaming profile 2nd.
>>>> login to the fileserver -- you mean DC? and get into active directory????

Once that has been completed, I would have the user log back in, and check the RP (roaming profile) directory for the newly created roaming profile.
>>>> if we do this, does it affect her email? we are using exchange 2000. she's on outlook xp.

 

[brady]

>>>> login to the fileserver -- you mean DC? and get into active directory????

Ok, I see how that would confuse someone...

You won't need to access Active Directory for this fix.
If your "roaming profiles" are located on a DC then yes.
The roaming profile paths will be located in AD (active directory).
Once you find the path, login to that server and rename the profile directory which should match the local profile directory.

>>>> if we do this, does it affect her email? we are using exchange 2000. she's on outlook xp.

The only way this will effect her email will be if you do NOT move over the "Local Settings and "Application Data" from the renamed profiles.

Heres where this will get tricky... We don't really know exactly where the corruption has taken place. Sometimes moving these folders over to the newly created profiles will drag the corruption along with it.

If you do NOT move the local setting and application data folders, you will have to reinsert the exchange server into the users outlook client. AND you may want to make sure that the users .PST's are not inside the Application Data\Outlook folder.

To be safe, you may want to move all "pst's and ost's" to a newly created directory in the "My Documents" folder or a network drive.

Im sorry If I have confused you more than necessary.

 

[talldude123]

right-click on the desktop, click on "arrange icons by", and click on "show desktop icons"

 

[selina]

the other IT guy played around with it and it's fine now.
I guess he reset the permissions....

But thank you so much for the valuable tip.