The other day my mate was using my pc and when he had finished and gone i looked at the desktop and noticed all the icons had changed to the unknown file icon like windows dosn't know what the program is but they still all work fine it's just the icons that have changed and it's happend in the start menu aswell, i've tried manually changing the icons back but when i select the original icons again the same thing comes up, i've added a screen shot of my desktop to show what i mean please can anybody help?

there are alot of things to try here.

start by right clicking the desktop then click Properties > Appearance Tab > Effects and then make sure that "Use Large Icons" is UNchecked.

reboot.

if that doesnt work then right click desktop > properties > desktop > customise desktop then under the icons choose restore defaults. you might have to do this one by one for each shortcut.

also you can:
Run both the edits on line 157
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htmhttp://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

& here is a link to other options:

microsoft.public.windowsxp.general

or post back if no luck & we will look further

yeah that worked great thanks for the help.

kewl



glad to help