Bizarre Desktop Behaviour

Ardneh · Feb 20, 2011

After several hours in use the display goes weird, as in example screenshots.

Ctrl+Alt+Delete to restart, and will be OK again for a while.

Have done full scan w/ Avira, and Malwarebytes, and Avira boot disc scan.

Only a few known false positives showed from scans, allowed them to be quarantined anyway.

Three successive runs of sfc /scannow.

Then chkdsk /f /r

sfc /scannow again

Replaced bad font shown as only unrepaired thing from sfc.

Any suggestions on how to troubleshoot will be appreciated.

How the desktop would normally look:
http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/3319/desktop04.png

Examples of problem:

http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/9022/startmenu01.png
http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/3448/desktop01.png
http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/9315/desktop02b.png
http://img87.imageshack.us/img87/6764/desktop03.png

richc46 · Feb 20, 2011

Check in device manger make sure that graphics driver is up to date and no yellow warning signs.
If that looks ok
Check monitor driver, resolution can be changing and probably is
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/save-and-restore-desktop-icon-layout-in-windows-vista/
If they check out
Download fences, it will solve the problem.
Stardock.com - Your Edge In Software

Ardneh · Feb 20, 2011

richc46,

Thanks for the response.

Have expanded everything in Device Manager, no yellow warning signs.

Monitor driver is Microsoft generic PnP, has worked fine for months.
Will see if any model specific drivers are available.

Updating graphics driver is problematic.

Over the years I've tried various driver updates, and they have always
caused instability or horrible display appearance.
Will try again though.

Had Fences installed, and thought it was cause of these problems, but uninstalling didn't fix things.

Haven't noticed changes in display resolution.

Icons maintain their position , but sometimes arrow overlay
is absent or text is missing while text shadow remains.

The taskbar wants to go to the top of the screen.

richc46 · Feb 20, 2011

The normal reason that icons change position is due to a change in resolution or malware.
I think that you have to work with that, if you are positive that there is no malware.

Ardneh · Feb 20, 2011

The icons don't change position.

I don't know that I would ever 100% assume there is no malware present. Some of them are pretty tricky.

==============================
HP has no special monitor drivers showing, will look for display driver updates now.

richc46 · Feb 20, 2011

Try with eset. There is no download. It is awesome on finding malware.
http://www.eset.com/online-scanner

Ardneh · Feb 21, 2011

Updated graphics driver, good news is that the new driver did not cause any new problems.

Bad news is that the original complaint remains as it was.

eset.com/online-scanner found one adware and two probable false positives.

Quarantined and deleted all three - no benefit.

So am open to any other suggestions regarding the original problem, which is still in effect.

richc46 · Feb 21, 2011

Ok fences was not to your liking. How about wintidy?
Make a sytem restore point in case you do not like the results and then give it a try
Customer Support -- Download
Im checking to be sure its comptible with Vista

Edit: According to this it should be just fine
http://www.vistax64.com/vista-general/126681-how-stop-desktop-icons-moving-vista.html

Ardneh · Feb 21, 2011

Thanks for the links.

I need to repeat this for clarity, my icons aren't moving.

The position of the icons is the most stable aspect of the problem.

====================================

The taskbar wants to go to the top of the screen, open windows go partially or totally transparent.

Solid colors fill in over the wallpaper.

It all changes around with each mouse-click.

richc46 · Feb 21, 2011

OK
Lets be sure that other software is not the cause,test with clean boot
How to troubleshoot a problem by performing a clean boot in Windows Vista or in Windows 7

If that does not work
sounds like the account may be corrupt.
Create and test in another user account and see if the results are the same.

Ardneh · Feb 21, 2011

If that does not work
sounds like the account may be corrupt.
Create and test in another user account and see if the results are the same.

Yes, that's a good thought.

Is there a tutorial page on how to migrate personal files, settings, programs, etc. to a new account?

test with clean boot

I'll want to wait 'til tonight to do that, as the problem takes hours to manifest after a reboot.

richc46 · Feb 21, 2011

When I went from Vista to Seven I wanted to test easy transfer. I set up a new user account and transferred all my settings to a finger drive and then to the new account
Type easy transfer in search, by the start button for the software necessary

niemiro · Feb 21, 2011

Hello!

You can also test it for a bit. Just create a new account, and play on that for a bit. See if the problem re-occurs. If it does, then there isn't much point in switching over...

Richard

Ardneh · Feb 22, 2011

Updating on this:

Made a new admin user account and easy-transferred program settings and Windows settings to it.
(Could transferring settings also transfer the problem from a possibly corrupted original user account?)

The problem did manifest in the new account,
but not in the original account, which was logged on but not in use.

Discovered that logging off, then logging back on will temporarily correct the problem.
Restarting the computer isn't necessary.

Haven't yet tried clean boot.

Will continue testing , with clean boot, and also a new account
without settings transferred from original account.

richc46 · Feb 22, 2011

Keep us posted, if you find the solution we can all celebrate; if not maybe we can offer additional help.

niemiro · Feb 22, 2011

Hello!

I don't know how usable a problematic account actually is, but does restarting explorer.exe fix the problem temporarily? I think it might do...

Richard

Ardneh · Mar 4, 2011

Yes, killing explorer.exe and re-starting it does do a temporary fix.

The problem persists in a new user account.

I believe that this is the same mousekeys bug described in this post:
http://www.vistax64.com/crashes-debugging/288137-mousekeys-causes-explorer-bug.html

Searching the web on the problem yields no solutions.

I've put together a .bat file with keyboard shortcut to stop and restart explorer.

Will leave it at that for now.

Bizarre Desktop Behaviour

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