Quick Launch Toolbar, Desktop Icons and Other Things Making Me Scream

Several months ago after a windows update (XP Pro, SP3), my computer began behaving badly. I can't write files to a cd or dvd. The beast locks up. This, that, something else. It's silly season at my place of employment and I haven't had much time to do anything not absolutely essential. In bits and pieces, I've got the machine running fairly well although it still tells me that writable disks are not writable.

HOWEVER. After every reboot, the quick launch toolbar disappears and the icons on the desktop align to the grid even though I've toggled those options on the taskbar menu 8,347,932.5 times.

There's no sign of malware (malwarebytes, superantispyware). I've run regseeker and cleaned up the registry. I've run chkdsk. I've deleted cookies (and consumed a box I bought at the grocery store), temp files, histories, etc. I've uninstalled software I don't use. I put the PC in time-out and even went on vacation thinking we both needed time apart. I've ranted and raved.

I'm cranky. Theoretically, I can move icons and re-toggle the quicklaunch toolbar each and every time I log on, but it's the principle of the thing, ya know?

Ideas?

Connie

 

Is your Windows XP part of a networked domain? If so, it may be subject to domain wide policies that turn off toolbars and other functions and impose security settings.

However, it looks like you have done a number of the items in step 3 at http://petermartinconsult.supanet.com/computer/windows/quicklau.htm#step3 - have you done any of the other suggested items in that step?