Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2014 January 11

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January 11

Can't find my desktop

No, nobody took an ax and chopped off the top of my desk, I'm talking about booting my Windows 7 32-bit PC. I get the error message:

C:\Windows\system32\config\systemprofile\Desktop could not be located. 

It lets me log on, but all my customization and desktop icons are gone. When I look for that file, the entire directory structure is there except the Desktop part at the end.

1) Is "Desktop" a single file or a directory ?

2) What might have caused this ?

3) I haven't stored a system restore point for quite a while, so would prefer not to go back to that. What other options do I have here ? How can I create a new Desktop ? Should I create a new user ?

Thanks, StuRat (talk) 00:35, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Hi, StuRat. The desktop, of course, is a directory. Go to C:\Users\StuRat\Desktop. See what is in there. How did it happen? There must have been an event that led to it. Could have been a malicious virus or something. Try to put your cursor on the directory, right click, find Restore previous versions. See if there is a restore point in there. Good luck. Thanks, --AboutFace 22 (talk) 03:05, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

That directory exists (except that where you have "StuRat", my path has my PC's name), and it's fully populated. So, is the problem just that it seems to be looking in the wrong place ? Should I just copy everything from this directory to the one it seems to be looking for in the error message ? StuRat (talk) 03:17, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Honestly, my expertise may be at an end here. Sure I did not mean that you have a directory name "StuRat." StuRat is a user name for Wikipedia. Instead that directory should have your first and last name if you set the OS correctly while signing in the first time. An example might be "John Doe" or something like this. I don't think you should copy the directory to anything. Perhaps you should wait for someone with more experience in this area. I will keep thinking about it also. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 03:58, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

This is what I would do. Download and install Microsoft Security Essentials. It is charge free. Run a full scan. See if it ferrets out any malware. Then you can download and install "Spybot Search and Destroy" and run it. It is also free for individuals. I think Spybot has bogus websites, so be careful. Perhaps there is a sucker in there somewhere in your registers. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 04:11, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

For your information in one of my machines (Windows 7 64 bit) systemprofile does not have subdirectory "Desktop" but the desktop is available. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 04:29, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

I think Windows was looking there because it couldn't find your personalised desktop. Mine is located in C:\Users\(myname)\, but yours might be elsewhere depending on how your user system is set up. Just search the C drive for the desktop folder. It is unlikely to have been deleted (unless you have malware as suggested above). More likely (from my experience of Windows) is that the system has created a new user identity for some reason that no-one can explain. Is there more than one "you" in the Users folder? If you have a valid desktop folder somewhere, then there is no harm in copying it to the location where it is looking. Dbfirs 10:59, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Copying it seemed to mostly fix the problems, but there still seem to be some left. For example, the icons down on the bottom, left (next to the Start button) are still there, but they aren't rendered correctly (they all default to the piece of paper with the corner turned down icon). StuRat (talk) 14:54, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Somewhere on your C drive will be the missing icons, possibly not in an icons folder, but in separate applications folders; and somewhere in the registry will be pointers to the locations of those missing icons, but I don't know enough about the registry to know where to find them or where to copy them to. I can't explain how the registry becomes corrupted, but it used to happen frequently on some earlier versions of Windows. Perhaps someone else can help, or suggest a simpler solution? Dbfirs 17:08, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. One other thing I'd like back is the contents of my sticky note. It's blank now. StuRat (talk) 19:02, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't use sticky notes, so I don't know where it stores its files, but you could try copying those if you find them in your C:\Users\(myname)\ folder. The copying fix is not an ideal solution. What we should really be doing is mending the registry to tell it to look in C:\Users\(myname)\ instead of C:\Windows\system32\config\systemprofile\ which is really just a default for new users. Long ago, under earlier versions of windows, I used to create new users and copy across the desktop folder from one user to another, but I can't remember all the details now, and they will probably have changed anyway. Have we any registry experts here who know which key holds the default location for users? It ought to be somewhere in HKEY_USERS? ... though editing the registry can have drastic results! Dbfirs 08:43, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

You already tried the remedies that you find when you search the web for the path name, right? 88.112.50.121 (talk) 17:49, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

It looks somebody asked how to create new users. It is elementary. START==>Control Panel==>User Accounts and Family Safety==>Add or Remove User Accounts. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 02:47, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Note that this depends on which version and how Control Panel is set up. Mine for instance is just under "User Accounts" because I have it just set up to show me the icons, not the categories. Nevertheless, I think the question posed was actually where in the registry user account location information is kept, unless you're talking about somewhere else. - Purplewowies (talk) 08:03, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, StuRat's problem is that all the files are there in the old user folder, but there is a corruption somewhere in the registry entries so that the system doesn't look in the correct location to load them. The suggestion of creating a new user and copying desktop and other folders across from the old identity might work. The ideal solution is to find the corrupted entry in the registry, but this is much easier to suggest than to carry out unless someone knows exactly where to look. Windows usually succeeds in repairing a corrupted registry from the log files (ntuser.log etc) but for some reason it occasionally fails with the user file locations. (If there was a full backup (including system files) just before the problem, then it might be possible to manually restore the user registry file (ntuser.dat) but there could be unpredictable consequences, and this is not ever recommended by Microsoft, so I wouldn't advise trying it because it could crash the whole system. The registry would possibly get wrongly updated again from the log file to recreate the problem. Anyway if there was a full backup, then a full restore would be the correct procedure, and there wasn't a recent backup in this case. ) Dbfirs 09:29, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Just a small thing to note. With Windows, I find it is relatively easy to inadvertently click and drag an essential directory/file to another location. Especially if you are administrator, you could have dropped it anywhere in the filesystem; and the move dialog can come and go real quick on a new PC. Astronaut (talk) 15:52, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

This doesn't seem likely, in my case, since I haven't been doing anything with systems folders. StuRat (talk) 15:59, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

Object error

When I roam the Internet some pages appear fine, I can read the content and switch to another web address. However, some of the pages give me a peculiar error. I have another machine (my wife's) which I also use frequently and over there I've never run into it. Also on my other OS here: Windows Server 2008 I don't have it either. The error presents itself as a small white window with the message: "Object Error" on the top there is another message: "A message from the website." There is a single OK button. If I click on it the devil disappears for three seconds and comes up again. Everything gets frozen. I cannot move the page. The only way to resolve it is to sign off and sign in back again. Before I updated the IE to v 11 I had this error very often, perhaps on every page. It was almost impossible to roam the web. Now it is rather infrequent but still bothers me. What is this? Thanks --AboutFace 22 (talk) 02:58, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

While I don't know anything about that specific error, the pattern of an error message that comes right back up after you click OK is annoyingly common. Every error should have a counter and if it comes up more than twice in a minute it should then offer to kill the process instead of staying in an infinite loop. StuRat (talk) 03:08, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

It is funny. I should have googled first instead of posting in here. There is a mountain of web stuff on this error but most ask to download so many megabytes of malware. One sensible post says that it must be Adobe flash. Quite possible. I am wondering if anyone had this nuisance and how they coped with it. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 04:04, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

If you suspect that Flash is the problem, you could try uninstalling Flash and then reinstalling it. StuRat (talk) 10:28, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

The problem with that theory is that most web pages don't use flash...so if this were the cause, you shouldn't have problems with more than a few specific pages, even prior to IE 11. You could try disabling flash altogether and see if that makes a difference with problematic pages - but I suspect it won't. You could also go to www.checkflashversion.com and see what version of Flash you're using on the machine that has problems and what version on the machines that work OK. That might also reveal some interesting possibilities. (You don't need to download their tool to do that BTW - just look at the first half dozen lines at the top of that page).

Unless you're forced to use IE for some reason, I'd strongly recommend switching to either Firefox or Chrome - and even if you don't want to make that switch for some reason - it would be a good test to see if you get the same problems with either of those browsers...and if you do, perhaps they'll come up with a more informative error message. SteveBaker (talk) 15:48, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

• You have a malfunctioning plugin for your browser. There are several that could cause this problem, including one called Privacy Guard and another called Unfriend Checker. See this Microsoft page for ideas on how to find the culprit and remove it. (But like Steve, I think switching to Firefox is a better solution.) Looie496 (talk) 17:13, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, guys. I guess I will have to switch to FireFox. I do have it here in my computer. It is what I have also at work anyway. What is Privacy Safeguard? I do have it installed in my system. There is no Wikipedia article on it. It does not seem to be Microsoft Software. What kind of bug is it? --AboutFace 22 (talk) 17:43, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

OK, the Privacy Safeguard is gone (hopefully). I uninstalled it. I'll see how it works now. It is terrible that none of my anti-virus software detected it. The world of malicious intent is enormous :-) --AboutFace 22 (talk) 17:59, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Re-installing W7 on my HP laptop

Hello, I just got a Win7 Home Premium 64-bit DVD and was thinking of re-installing Win7 on my laptop. However, it's an HP and has all their crap installed, and I was never given a Win7 DVD, rather I was given HP's recovery disk. I was just wondering: would installing from the Win7 DVD severely affect my laptop (e.g. the function key stuff)? I hate HP's stuff and I never use them anyway.Bananasomg (talk) 22:41, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

I know how you feel about this "overhead." Some of this is really nasty although I've never dealt with HP. You can install the OS though and then uninstall the parts you love to hate. Go to Control Panel/uninstall programs and find what you want. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 23:55, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

I have no experience with HP, but you can almost certainly get all of the drivers and utility software that you care about from here, including the function key software (HP Quick Launch?). The third-party pre-installed software (DVD players, etc.) is probably not available for download. -- BenRG (talk) 04:47, 12 January 2014 (UTC)

Why not create a Win 7 recovery disk before you start? I believe HP adds a utility somewhere in the menu to let you do that. Anything else you should be able to get from the HP support website (start with the links provided by Ben). Alternatively, go to Control Panel/uninstall programs and uninstall the crapware you don't want. Astronaut (talk) 15:44, 13 January 2014 (UTC)