Active Desktop Recovery mode
I solved an annoying issue that one of my users was having today at work, and thought I’d put the fix up here for ayone else who comes across this (or, in the event that I need to fix this again in a week, I know where to find it).
The issue: The user’s desktop was white with an error message in the top right corner reading “blah blah blah, Active Desktop Recovery blah blah blah.” There is a button that says something like “Click here to restore, but when you click it, you get another error message - but you shouldn’t be surprised given the fact that we’re talking about Microsoft here. There are a few ways to fix this, but depending on how security is setup in your network, you may not be able to try all three options.
- Right-click on the desktop, click properties. On the themes tab, change your theme to something else and click apply - this should change the theme and remove the error message. After you apply the change, you can switch back to your original theme.
- Navigate to the C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer folder. Click on Tools, the Options, then click the view tab. Uncheck the box for “Hide protected Operating System Files” and hit OK. You should now see a file in that folder called desktop.htt - delete this file and reboot your PC. Problem solved.
- Click on Start, then run, type in regedit and hit enter. Expand the HKEY_CurrentUser tree and navigate to the following key: Software\Microsoft\InternetExplorer\Desktop\SafeMode\Components\DeskHTMLVersion and change the dword value from 110 to 0. Close regedit and reboot. Problem solved.
If you have problems with this fix, let me know and I will do my best to assist.
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