Unofficial Tex Murphy

My computer is acting very weird. The icons on my desktop and the taskbar keep disappearing and reappearing as if the system is rebooting constantly. It's making using my computer for anything very difficult.

And no, I have no virus or other muckery, I have exorcised all d(a)emons.

Still, it's annoying as all hell. Anybody know what could be causing this, and how I fix it?

Much obliged!

-Fred

Sounds like your 'explorer.exe' process keeps restarting. It is either as a result of some kind of malware, or a recent piece of software you installed it conflicting with it. Try performing a system restore to a time before it started happening and see if that happens. Note that anything you installed after the restore point you created will be reverted.

-Cub. =o)

Uhm, okay... How do I do that..?

-Fred

Strike that, I figured it out via google (lack of sleep makes brain tired heh)

Anyways. Didn't work. My computer cannot restore itself to an earlier restorepoint. And it does not state a reason why.

Just "Your computer could not be restored to this point."

And I tried several.

-Fred

Now that you've tried the scientific approach, may I suggest a good old fashioned computer exorcism? It seems obvious to a man who knows a thing or two about the universe and its mechanics that your computer is quite simply possessed. We took the liberty of dispatching a faith agent to your residence. Comply to his instructions and do not question his requests, no matter how strange or incomprehensible to your untrained mind. Most importantly, be sure to have your checkbook ready.




Also



Is the desktop icons Auto Arrange option on?

Wonder if it has anything to do with the display settings you changed for direct x when trying to get grim fandango working.

long shot, i know.

No, the auto arrange is off, and no, I changed the directx settings back after I was done playing (before any restarts).

And nothing works as it should. The taskbar keeps reverting to windows 98 style graphics (gray and boring) too now.

This is annoying :/

-Fred

there is always one solution..... the last resort.

Back everything up.
Reinstall windows from scratch.

Unless it is a hardware issue.... with the video card...

when you say ugly gray, do you mean regular grey or 256 colour grey.

cause if it is 256 colour grey and you can't change the resolution, it could be a driver or hardware issue.

Fred Buer wrote:No, the auto arrange is off, and no, I changed the directx settings back after I was done playing (before any restarts).

And nothing works as it should. The taskbar keeps reverting to windows 98 style graphics (gray and boring) too now.

This is annoying :/

-Fred

Okay judging by the fact the Windows sees the need to revert away from the normal eye candy and limit itself to Win 98 style theme usually means that there is an issue on your graphics end. Try updating your Graphics Card driver, or if you are running the latest, try uninstalling and re-installing an earlier version and see if that works.

Sometimes, when either you fiddle, or if your vid card is on the blink the drivers will go a bit wacko and cause Windows' visual elements to constantly revert to the lowest common denominator... in your case the constant rebooting of the explorer.exe process and the dumbing down of the eye candy.

Based on your symptoms I'd say its a display driver issue. First change things back to before you were trying to get Grim Fandango working... why? Because you might not know it but lowering the hardware acceleration setting actually limits the amount of visuals in the normal windows environment too, and not just applications.

Oh and on a side note, I know that a reinstall will fix things, but I am a firm believer in fixing the issue rather than painting over it.

-Cub. =o)

I reinstalled Fixed everything. Pain in the ass though

-Fred

#¤%"%&Y"¤!#"¤%!!!!

I just realized my shortstory was on my old desktop!! Now I have to start from scratch! Pain the NETHER REGIONS!! PLURAL!!

Some days are worse than others... *sigh*

-Fred

Any chance you had sent it to anyone who might still have a partial copy??? Whenever I make changes to my novel, be it editorial or continue the story or whatnot, I always email a copy to myself in my Hotmail account, that way it will always be out there if for some reason my computer has a irretrievable Hard Drive problem... Just some advice for you in the future to avoid another crisis such as this...
If you don't have a copy floating out there anywhere, I wish you the best in remembering as much as possible...

It's either what Cubase said, or you've got a windows profile problem. Either way, you're still best off backing up, nuking from orbit and starting again

It's the only way to be sure

-Fred

Finally! Someone gets the reference!