Windows Annoyances

[river]

Anyone know how to get rid of background shadows on desktop icon labels I've tried the following;

right click My Computer / Advanced tab / Performance Settings / Visual Effects tab check Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
"ListviewShadow"=dword:00000001


Nothing seems to work it's a right pain in the **** and now I'm obsessed by it.

[Tyfon]

Not sure what you're after here. Are you using winXP?

If so you can either have desktop icon text with a coloured background or transparent with drop shadow. The coloured background will still appear even if drop shadows are on if you haveTo work around this problem, do not use desktop content that enables Active Desktop active desktop items on your desktop. To work around this problem, do not use desktop content that enables Active Desktop

Cheers,

K.

[no1patto]

Originally Posted by river

right click My Computer / Advanced tab / Performance Settings / Visual Effects tab check Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop

This should work it works for me tick the box and apply

[river]

Originally Posted by Tyfon

Not sure what you're after here. Are you using winXP?

If so you can either have desktop icon text with a coloured background or transparent with drop shadow. The coloured background will still appear even if drop shadows are on if you haveTo work around this problem, do not use desktop content that enables Active Desktop active desktop items on your desktop. To work around this problem, do not use desktop content that enables Active Desktop

Cheers,

K.

Hi Tyfon OS is Windows XP and it could be an active desktop problem yes I simply want to know how to remove the coloured background from the icon text so how do I disable active desktop?

[Tyfon]

From: http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000593.htm :

Microsoft Windows XP users

Open the Control Panel.
Open Display Properties.
Click the Desktop tab.
Click the Customize Desktop button.
Click the Web tab in the Desktop Items window.
If you wish to enable the Active Desktop check "My Current Home Page" to add your current home page into your desktop or click New to add another web page and/or other Active Desktop features. To update the content click the Synchronize button.

If you wish to disable Active Desktop make sure all checkboxes in this window are un-checked.

Cheers,

K.

[stevem]

Donwload and install this

http://www.microsoft.com/ntworkstati.../nttweakui.asp


These sites also contains some very useful info

http://www.dougknox.com/
http://www.tweakxp.com/userinterface_tweaks.aspx

[Tyfon]

If he wants to tweak then he'll want the XP version:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/d...powertoys.mspx

K.

[river]

I'm sure this is a bug in windows I've tried everything and no dice, Active desktop is what started this problem I think and even if I uncheck everything the desktop icon names remain with a blue box surrounding them.

[river]

More light is shed

SYMPTOMS
When you try to display icons and icon labels that have a transparent background or a drop-shadow effect, the backgrounds of the icon and of the desktop text is the same as the background color that is set in the Advanced Appearance dialog box in Display Properties.

WORKAROUND
To work around this issue, do not use desktop content that turns on the Active Desktop feature.

STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

APPLIES TO
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition
• Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional Edition

Finally fixed it with a system restore have no idea what the story was as all my settings are the same, those b*stards at microsoft didn't want to know as I have a OEM version OS.

Thanks anyway Tyfon.

[jedithief]

I, like River, was obsessing over this problem.
It all started when I tried to unmount a virtual cd-rom. I don’t know what I clicked but I got a popup saying something about "Active Desktop". Ever since then I had blue background around my desktop icons. No big deal but....it drove me nutz!!!

After a quick search on Google I ended up here.

After reading through to Rivers post "Bugs in the system" I panicked because I have long ago shut off system restore.

But thankfully, I figured out a solution to the problem with the help of Tyfon's post.
This is what I did:
Right click on your Desktop
Click "Properties" in the popup menu
Click "Desktop" tab
Click "Customize Desktop"
Click "Web" tab
Uncheck anything under "Web Pages:" and then click "ok".
Then click "Apply" on the Display Properties box.

Hope this helps someone out there and prevents them from pulling there hair out like we did.

[Paddy]

That Bill Gates, eh? What a bastard.