Tool bar and Program shortcuts dissapeared

Hello everyone and thanks for reading this, I'm in dire need of help. Yesterday, I was on the web looking up info on Nixon for a scholarship I've been nominated for, and I had a plate of chips on my desk and the mouse chord was under the plate. I jerked the mouse up to free it and when I did so Mozilla Firefox closed and all of my program shortcuts and toolbar were gone. I can only run programs with Windows Task manager, which is what I'm doing now. In addition, when I try to run a system restore, I get a message that says "System Restore has been turned off by group policy. To turn on system restore, contact your domain administrator". I don't know who or what that is, and it is worse because my computer used to be the family computer and I don't know where any manuals or the like are. Any help EXTREMELY appreciated

 

In TaskManager if you type in explorer.exe does your desktop come back.

 

Hey there,

dont know about your system restore or even what operating system you are using...

You may have enabled or already had configured the desktop to use active content and in effect similar to a web browser, there is an option to hide all icons when active desktop is enabled... this may have been accidentally tripped during your chip spilling adventure. Before getting to much other info please reply with -

P.C Brand and model
operating system - (version of windows)
Web Browser and version if possible..

Worst comes to worst, could try a repair install if the unit supports this from a hidden partition or cd / dvd but lets not go there - just yet.

B.T.W
Administrators typically apply a Group Policy to restrict other users with a lower security account or permission, such as power users or standard users from making alterations to the p.c's functionality or applications.

Things such as viewable icons or connections to the network or to either allow or deny certain access to programs, alterations or various other events, based on which "group" Administrator or Users group etc.. the policy is applied to. The group the user is assigned to either Administrator or User etc is defined when the account is initially setup although the account can be eleveated from user to administrator rights and vica versa - but only by someone that or an account that already has Administrative priveliges..

If you are a user and your account has been altered to administrator you can then set yourself back to user account but not back to admin again once you only have user rights again....if you google group policy you'll find libraries worth full of info on this subject... probably be a little clearer than what i have typed..

L8r

 

OS is windows xp
brand and model:HP Pavilion a747c

 

Hey there,

Did Sach2 suggestion help?

You'll possibly have a recovery partition option, if you havent completely formated your Hard Drive yet. Suggest going to the HP/Compaq home page / website, type in something along the lines of the units model or search for recovery partition or hidden partition, you may even be eligeable for online support, they do have a live instant message support, if you have another p.c available maybe a friends laptop to access the net, to i.m chat / talk you through the process.

If you have any experience with p.c's its not overly complicated... maybe just a little unfamiliar at first... once the hidden recovery partition is active to restore from you could probably follow your nose even.

Just be careful about a destructive restore option, that will wipe the current Operating system AND your data and be like it was fresh from the factory. A recovery install will ty and save your data but it isnt gauranteed.

I have only tried one of these and it spat the dummy... mind you that was on a packard bell and think some malware was in the existing unit so the option for that user and that budget was use a virtual operating system to backup data fro mthe unit (scan it of course)... start again with a destructive restore then restore the users data.. all in a geeks days work i guess...

L8r Guy Gluck wwith this one