buddha

Occasionally I get stuck with a folder icon in my taksbar that has no label, and when selected brings up a full blank screen that obscures everything, even the taskbar. Once it's up the only way out is to hit the Win key. It does not respond to left or right mouseclips and when highlighted in the taskbar also cannot be closed with a right mouse click. It also cannot be closed from the task manager because it does not show up there at all. Theories?

Almost forgot, the true beauty of this is that any time I close or minimize any other open window the gray screen pops up. It goes away if I restert but I'd still like to know what it is.

petdevils

i've had a quasi similar thing happen before except it was a tan/light light brown colour and it would fill the screen....task bar everything etc just gone and kinda locked up,,,,,no idea what it is?

Daedalus

Happens to me aswell, the only way to close it is to reboot

petdevils

from memory i think it happened after installing some old windows themes and fonts copied from my old puter, then deleted them and scarecely happened since. maybe its from something you recently installed or perhaps even changed in your registry?

Eproxus

Get someone computer guru to run SoftICE (a powerful debugger that halts the whole system) and check out what things is started, even things that don't show up in the taskmanager.

Daedalus

Where do I get SoftICE from?

scsa20

it also happens to me at random times, I just close it by slecting it and click Alt+F4 (that works without restarting it, just a little tip for you )

Daedalus

I've tried the Alt+F4 combination, I've also tried the XP task manager to see if it's listed anywhere, under Both, applications, and services tab, just to see if it's anything that has crashed, but no Joy So I've got to reboot if I want to see the desktop.


I've managed to take a screenshot of this 'folder'

petdevils

Daedalus!

i checked out your pic, and thats the same colour i had, except it did the whole screen usually.

Btw are you a james joyce fan or something?

Daedalus

It's damn annoying, I think it's related to either explorer.exe or iexplore.exe (obviously) but I need to find a program that can trace the events leading up to the 'mystery folder'.

BTW, Who is James Joyce?