I had that happen frequently on one computer and eventually found a fix script that I would run then reboot and would all be fixed. I think it was related to corruption of the icon cache or something similar. lopaka
From: Thane Sherrington <th...@computerconnectionltd.com> To: "hardw...@lists.hardwaregroup.com" <hardw...@lists.hardwaregroup.com> Sent: Wednesday, September 7, 2016 10:36 AM Subject: [H] Odd Windows 7 problem I've run into this a few times, and each time I've been forced to do a repair install to fix it. This time, repair install isn't working, so I'm digging deeper. Here's the problem. On Windows 7 Home and Pro systems, occasionally they will boot up to a desktop with no icons, but the icon labels are visible. When I click the start button, it depresses, but the Start Menu doesn't appear. I can open Task Manager by right clicking the Start Menu or by using Ctrl-Shift-Esc and then I can open a command prompt. I can open Control Panel from the command prompt, but all the icons are missing (although the labels are visible) and I can use the search box to open Control Panel applets. Here's what I've tried so far: 1)Repair install/Inplace Upgrade from the DVD. This works for the first reboot, but after a few reboots, the problem returns. 2)System Restore - I've gone back to a known good restore point, but the problem remains (so no icons when System Restore reboots). 3)SFC /scannow - says it has made changes, but no icons on reboot. 4)Created a new user profile - no change in that profile. 5)Boot to safe mode - no change. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Out of interest, I think the problem may be related to Visual C++ 2013 redistributable, since on this computer, it installed just before the problem started. I tried repairing it, but there was no change. I'm running another SFC before I remove Visual C++ 2013 redistributable. T