hi there, a nice sunny morning here and guess what when I just turned on my computer my icons were there.
Somehow last night I ended up in add / remove programmes. I removed a few that were not needed.
When I returned to my account Real Player was not accessible. So I downloaded it again from Real Player site and it worked but the add / Remove screen reappeared but was frozen. I left it like that and left the internet radio on all night. This morning I rebooted to get rid of the frozen screen and on reconnecting all my icons appeared. ??? So I think it's fixed. I have to go to work now but will do further checks when I get home. So thanks for your help, maybe you know what happened? Have a great day and thanks again. I'll update when I get home tonight, cheers Willo.

As much as I would like to I cannot expel the notion of the Ghost in the Machine.

Anyway I would recommend two things if everything is fine:

1. Go to System Restore and Create a Restore Point.

2. Go to start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Backup

Click Advanced Mode > Backup Wizard > Backup Everything (if you have the disk space)

Or Back up System State i.e the Registry.


Or: Use this tool which is perhaps better:

[ERUNT] Registry Backup and Restore for Windows
http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/erunt/


[ERUNT Download URLs]
http://www.aumha.org/downloads/erunt.zip
http://www.aumha.org/downloads/erunt-setup.exe


[Installing & Using ERUNT]
http://www.winxptutor.com/regback.htm
http://www.silentrunners.org/sr_eruntuse.html
http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-o...erunt/erunt.txt

Hi, everything seems to be working ok still. I will take your advise on back ups and I really thank you once again for your time. Have a great day, Willo.

Thanks for your thanks.

Anyway since you do not have an XP CD these backups are your best bet.

After saving them to your hard drive (which you must do first) you can burn them to a CD if you have a CD burner (CD RW).

If you do not have such a drive please note the location of the Backup on your hard drive as if Windows Explorer fails again you can access the backup via the Task Manager.

To do this you will need the exact location on your drive to New Task Run.