missing icons in control pannel

[kcornod]

Ive come across a weird situation.I have a customer who is missing all icons in the control pannel and cant open alot of his programs.The computer boots normally,I ve scanned for viruses,came up with nothing.anbody have any ideas?,Besides formatting..
Don

[Raven]

what OS...

quick hint..search drive for all files with a CPL (Control Panel List) extention

[j-man]

Does it happen in safe mode as well?

Has there been any software installed/uninstalled when this started happening?

Check for a file named control.ini If the file is there you can try renaming it to control.old, then reboot and see if the control panel opens normally.

[Raven]

[quote]Originally posted by j-man:
<strong>Check for a file named control.ini If the file is there you can try renaming it to control.old, then reboot and see if the control panel opens normally.</strong><hr></blockquote>

good one...i am losing my touch...getting old and senile in my mid 20's

[kcornod]

windows ME

[kcornod]

control.ini hmmmmm..I'll try it ..Thanks

[kcornod]

Control.ini did'nt work..

[kcornod]

when I go into safe mode all icons are there...

[SubZero]

try getting TweakUI or X-Setup, and you can hide/unhide control panel icons with either utility.

[kcornod]

Ok ,basiclly in safe mode,the icons and worked fine.So I tried the Diagnostic startup,and the problem was back.So it had to be in the startup drivers for windows?Lucky for the customer he upgraded windows ME from win98,so in the add and remove programs he saved his win 98 and I was able to revert back to win 98.I checked the icons and programs and everything was fine,from there I reinstalled win ME..all fixed.So I'll close this topic .Thanks for all your input,I think If I knew more about the registry I could of repaired it there,but I don't.Happy Holidays!