Vista - Lost Control of Control Panel

I am running Vista Ultimate on one machine and Vista Home Premium on another
machine. Something has happened to the Control Panel on the Ultimate
machine. When I bring up the Control Panel window in the "Control Panel
Home" view the icon on the desktop is the correct icon (looks like a little
panel display). However, when I select the "Classic View" a new window
opens and the icon changes to a blank page with the upper right hand corner
folded over. If I close the "Classic View" window first and then the
"Control Panel Home" window the icon returns to the good one. Also, in the
Start Menu if the "Display as Link" option (Start Button>Properties>Start
Menu>Customize>Control Panel) is selected for the Control Panel nothing
happens when I click on the Control Panel (button?) in the Start Menu. If
the "Display as Menu" option is selected for the Control Panel the list of
Control Panel stuff appears as a menu when I click on Control Panel in the
Start Menu - as it should. Neither of these problems are show stoppers but
somewhere a long the line I have done something to screw up the registry??
Can anyone give me a hint what to do, who to contact, or where to look in
the registry to attempt to fix these two (probably related) problems. This
system has been running Vista since it first came out and I dread having to
reinstall Vista and all the other stuff from scratch. I have asked for help
on this issue several times and several ways but so far have come up empty.
Help is needed.

Ken,

I'd do a couple of things first.

1. Try a system restore to a time before this started happening.

2. If the restore doesn't work, try a system repair using the Vista DVD.

If these things don't resolve the problem, let us know and we'll expand our search for a solution.

After several hours of fooling around with Repair and Restore using the
Vista Ultimate DVD and then going back one month and restoring the whole
partition using Acronis I still have the problem. So whatever change
occurred that caused the problem happened more than a month ago. Any
further ideas or instructions?

".Joe" <Joe.35nzg4@xxxxxx-mx.forums.net> wrote in message
news:Joe.35nzg4@xxxxxx-mx.forums.net...

Have you tried the system repair from the Vista DVD?

Yes. I thought that is what is said. I used the Vista Ultimate DVD from
MSFT. After that had no effect I punted and when back to a backup I made
with Acronis.
".Joe" <Joe.35pxl0@xxxxxx-mx.forums.net> wrote in message
news:Joe.35pxl0@xxxxxx-mx.forums.net...

Ken,

My bad, read the post so quickly I didn't read the post. So did your Acronis restore work to resolve the issue? I use Acronis myself and believe it's a good utility.

"Ken" wrote:

Ken:

I guess the only option (if you've already done virus/evilware scanning) is a fresh install.

Backup your important documents and files, then nuke your old system and start from scratch.

Sorry I couldn't be more helpful.

Consider this: Whenever a new error condition appears on your computer, it
is almost certain that there was some change to the computer soon before the
problem began. http://aumha.org/a/parasite.htm

"Ken" <krlorenz@xxxxxx> wrote in message
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