Desktop Personalization stopped working

[Cecebee]

I helped a disabled neighbor with a trojan removal yesterday and after finally managing to purge the devilish malware I was left with an unanticipated problem of another nature. Now the desktop background (a photo) that she was using has disappeared and is replaced by a simple black background. I have tried everything to restore both the photo and the canned Windows backgrounds but the entire process is broken. My guess is that this is caused by either a non running service or a missing or altered registry key. The owner has a rather sparse installation and I can pretty easily backup her data and run a total system repair from the Vista CD but I would rather be able to just fix the problem and not have to reinstall all her apps just to restore her personal configuration settings. A system restore from a restore point is out of the question because the ones that are now available probably contain the trojan and I don't want to endure that mess again. Can anyone offer a suggestion for repairing this problem like telling me the standard list of default services that should be running on a clean system? Sorry I don't know the version of her Vista other than that it is not Ultimate or above.

TIA for your assistance!

 

[kesume]

Hi welcome to the forum
See if this link will help:-
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/148257-context-menu-add-remove-turn-aero-off.html

 

[kesume]

You can also try this.
Right click in space on the screen > small window appears > select personalisation > choose appearance etc
as per screenshot

 

[americancritic]

Hello do NOT use a restore point if you do it will reinfect the computer, delete all restore points and then make new ones.

 

[americancritic]

Hello

Here is a link I use to set my services I think it will be helpful to you.

Black Viper's Website

 

[jp07764]

You can try to run the sfc /scannow in command prompt.
This will replace system files.
You must run it until it says no files need to be repaired.
Maybe 3 or 4 times.
Read this http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/66978-system-files-sfc-command.html

Jimmy

 

[americancritic]

Hello check version of vista...

1. Click Start
2. Right click computers
3. Click properties
4. This will give you what she is running.

Then let us know about her system

Tom

 

[Cecebee]

Thanks for all the replies. I have done all the suggested things except to look at the Aero possibility. I have used Black Viper's site previously but had forgotten about it. Seems that he does publish a default services configuration for all versions of Windows as well as a suggested one or two for each instance. SFC found a few bad files and supposedly fixed them before I sent my message but that didn't fix the problem. I will look at Aero and Black Viper today and see if I get a hint. Also the Ultimate version is Home Premium, not that it is likely to have any bearing on this problem.

 

[kesume]

Thank you for the post, do let us know how you go on.
There are other things we can try if the above fails to work.

 

[kesume]

These other excellent tutorials by Brink, may also help.
Within the tutorials are other links of interest.
Hope they're helpful.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/75413-aero-glass-transparency.html
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/83824-color-scheme.html