Hi,

Earlier today, as inexperienced as I am, I decided to mess around with some audio and visual settings on my Windows XP to create a more attractive looking interface on my desktop, but in doing so I made a pretty big mistake.

I accessed the appearance and display settings (rick click - properties) and played about with a bunch of different options. After I finished I soon discovered a strange difference on my computer's appearance, particularly the background of each application, including the Internet. My Windows Live Messenger is colourless, the websites I visit aren't displayed in the right colour with many common images missing or invisible, and the names of the icons on my desktop are each highlighted! My fonts, too, are altered and messed up.

I opened up Help & Support and tried just about everything I could to correct the error, but to no avail, except possibly even making the matter worse. I really, really need my default display set back to the original but it cannot be reversed. I'm hoping you guys could help me resolve this annoying issue.

I've taken 3 screenshots so you guys can get a better idea of what's going on - one is of my desktop, the second is a random website and the third is the advanced display settings menu I screwed up my computer with.

Note that I've rebooted, checked my device manager, and taken pretty much all of the troubleshooting steps needed in my PC's Help & Support. My OS is Windows XP SP3. Also, I did try and restore my system three separate times, back to a different checkpoint, but each restoration attempt failed.

My screeshots are attached below. Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks,

Averroes

Averroes,

Hello and welcome. Are you able to do a system restore to a point before you messed with the settings?

To get rid of the opaque background on the icons do this:

Right mouse click on the Desktop / Properties / Appearance go to Effects and put a tick in Show shadows under menus...

Hi Crush,

As mentioned above I did try and do a checkpoint restore - three times actually - but the PC does not restore. The message reads, "your computer cannot be restored", or something. I tried three different dates but received the same response each time after the computer attempted to restore itself.

Arctos,

That box is already ticked. I removed the check and re-ticked it again, but nothing.

I'm surprised I only received two replies unlike the other topics. So nobody knows a solution?

I haven't found a way to return the settings to a Default. However, you could log onto your computer under another account and check the settings there to find which ones require changing under your login.

Otherwise, return your FONTS to Normal size not Large, and change the settings on the Active Window bar or Active Title bar.

I didn't have another account but I just made one and logged in. Surprisingly, everything is normal on the new account. I could go back to the old one and make changes to the settings, although I already did make plenty of changes before, and I'm sure some of them were set back to the default settings which I find on my new account, but application backgrounds were still discolored/uncolored. I've no clue how it happened or what the cause is.

Now, is there a way to retrieve the bookmarks I have from the other account's browser?

Thanks DCi, I appreciate the help my friend.

Averroes