More problems - need help please

['97ventureowner]

Now that I have everybody's attention with my other problem thread (Browser), I'd like to see what help I could get with 2 other problems I am having with my computer. These are minor, yet annoying problems brought on by what I believe to have been caused by my kids actions when they were on the computer to play games, or paint. Here are the problems:

1) Last year, my then 4 year old son was playing on the computer. I don't know what he did,but he ended up losing all of the desktop icons from my wife's account. All she has is the screensaver showing.I've looked into where they could be or what happened and have no clue. It hasn't bothered us much because my wife is rarely on the computer, ( she says it's because she's on one at work 8 hours a day and doesn't desire to be on one at home,)it annoys me because I don't know what happened to them. I thought they were lost,but yesterday I went on her account to play pinball(part of problem #2 see below). I had a message balloon that said I had unused desktop icons that neded to be cleaned up. So I clicked on the wizard and it showed me a bunch of icons that could be cleaned up. Now where did that wizard find those icons and I couldn't? Obviously they are someplace. Does anybody know what my next move should be to restore those icons? BTW my son also "lost" about 6 icons on my desktop, luckily they are ones I rarely use. If I find a way to restore the ones to my wife's , then I'll use that to restore mine that were lost.

2) One day awhile back I went to my start menu to play some games. When the program menu came up, I could not find the link. This is the one in the start menu>All Programs> Games that includes pinball, hearts, minesweeper, etc. If I want to play these games now I have to access my wife's or kids' accounts where the link to these games still exist. I am wondering if my kids did something to my start menu while playing on the computer. Is there a way to re-install the link or import it to my account from another on the computer?

My OS is XP, it is a Dell 4400. And yes, I have banned the kids from my computer and am in the process of searching for one for them to use for their games and educational software. Thanks in advance for any assistance.

[eversio11]

For #1, right click anywhere on the desktop background. A little popup menu should come up. Move your cursor to 'Arrange Icons By..' and then another popup menu should appear. There is a menu item called 'Show Desktop Icons'. If there isn't a check mark next to it, click on that menu item and they should show up. If that doesn't work, go back to the first popup menu and try clicking the menu item 'refresh' and see if that does it.

[travis712]

Well for #1 if you know what icons you want, you can right click on "start", search or explore, then right click and "create shortcut. I've made sub categories for most of my files(see here-http://putfile.com/pic.php?pic=3/7418045795.jpg&s=x2


Also, what windows are you running? XP? If you ever get anything like that deleted again, you can just go to start, all programs, Pc help and tools, system restore. Hope that kinda helps lol, sorry if I confused you.

['97ventureowner]

Originally Posted by eversio11

For #1, right click anywhere on the desktop background. A little popup menu should come up. Move your cursor to 'Arrange Icons By..' and then another popup menu should appear. There is a menu item called 'Show Desktop Icons'. If there isn't a check mark next to it, click on that menu item and they should show up. If that doesn't work, go back to the first popup menu and try clicking the menu item 'refresh' and see if that does it.

That did the trick.I right clicked and clicked on the "Show Desktop Icons"( which happened to not be highlighted in bold lettering ,) and the screen refreshed and there were the icons. Thank you very much!

Note for Travis712- quote from above post"Also, what windows are you running? XP? If you ever get anything like that deleted again, you can just go to start, all programs, Pc help and tools, system restore. Hope that kinda helps lol, sorry if I confused you."
You didn't confuse me. I am running Windows XtraProblems LOL. I don't think system restore could have helped in this matter though. The problem occured last summer, so I don't even think my computer could go back that far.Add to that all I've added since then to my computer including SP2, and you're talking having to reinstall a lot of stuff.

[eversio11]

Alright, try this for #2:

1. Go to the folder My Computer > Main Drive > Documents and Settings > All Users > Start Menu > Programs.
2. Now, is there a 'Games' folder in there? If so, copy the entire folder.
3. Now, go to the folder My Computer > Main Drive > Documents and Settings > your user name > Start Menu > Programs.
4. Copy the Games folder into this folder.

Hope I didn't lose you, and I hope this works. I don't have multiple accounts on my XP, so I can't really check this.