windows xp gone bad.. help

[mollymoo]

Hi

my laptop has suddenly given me a grey bar at the bottom on windows XP rather then the blue bar it has before. I am nto sure why it is doin this. plus it is takin a long time to load up suddenly. not sure if they are connected.

any advice as to why it si suddenly grey at the bottom.

thanks

[squarebear]

From someone who had a similar problem:

It is possible that the Common Task Pane has decided to park itself on the desktop. It is a grey task pane about 4cm wide and normally has on it icons for "other places", "details", "folder tasks" (or similar). Does that sound like what you have?

Have a look at the registry entry given here http://www.dougknox.com/xp/scripts_desc/xp_com mtask_desktop.htm and make sure the correct one matches what you have. If not, run the fix they supply.

[mollymoo]

err i am not sure what you are decribing... it does not sound like my problem i think.

baciscally mine is that the bottom blue bar that has the start button and stuff is now grey... and not the blue...

[BillySugger]

Not sure about the slow loading but you could try a system restore to a day or 2 ago , should get rid of the grey bar .

[sarah_louise]

What colour do you have at the top of a window ?

[mollymoo]

everything seems to be in the grey format... it seems to have the same font and everythin as windows 98 look.

do you think it is the themes that has randomly changed itself...