Need help with Windows XP please : /

[Clayman1]

I have encountered a very strange issue that I have never seen anything like before. I'm at a loss and was hoping someone could help me fix this very annoying problem, which is as follows:

My 'active desktop' is constantly crashing every 10 seconds or so, then restarts and does it again over and over. After a while it will just stay crashed and I get the sandtimer icon when hovering over my taskbar. I open up my task manager to kill explorer.exe, then re-run it, but it still continues to crash. While this process is going on, my desktop alternates between the 'Active Desktop Recovery' screen (clicking the button does nothing) and my wallpaper. This makes it very difficult and frustrating to use my computer, any help or advice would be much appreciated, thanks!

 

[Kage]

It seems like you may have a virus/trogan/joke of some sort.

If you don't have protection software, you should have.

Download and run AVG (I recommend it):
http://free.avg.com/download-avg-anti-virus-free-edition
Download the free version on the left.

Also, you should have some form of Spyware protection. Run this also.
I use Spybot:
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html

If you have these types of programs already, update them, and run them. They will most likely find something.

 

[Neodude1123201]

Doesnt Internet Explorer handle active desktop?

What version are you using?

 

[Clayman1]

I had already run SpyBot which caught a few things but didn't help. I have now tried running AVG which caught quite a few things and may or may not have helped. I then updated my IE from 6.something to the latest. This did help my situation significantly; my active desktop is stable and does not continue to constantly crash. I can now use my computer normally without much aggravation, however there is still a slight problem. My desktop does not display my wallpaper, it only shows the Active Desktop Recovery screen with the 'Restore my Active Desktop' button. Clicking it brings up an IE Script Error which asks me if I want to continue running scripts on this page. Clicking either Yes or No does nothing. Any ideas on how to normalize this?

 

[Atomic Rooster]

How's this for a shot in the dark. . .

Try disabling active desktop, the reboot. Set your wallpaper as you like, then re-enable the active desktop.