Display problem corrected

Well we are pretty certain the Active Desktop is enabled because at each bootup we get a splash screen for a programme called Iconoid which looks like this -

Verify this

And this is to verify for you -

Dracula & HorusUK - do you both have Explorer set to Single Click or Double Click? It seems that in order to enable Single click one needs to have AD enabled but we are not sure. We saw a mention of it somewhere.

Ok, I've played with the settings some more, this is what I've found out...

Single-click behaviour does not affect AD settings, the GeneralFlags value stayed at 4.

You can hide all desktop icons by right-clicking, choosing 'Arrange icons by' and unchecking 'Show desktop icons'. That enables Active Desktop (GeneralFlags = 0) but the .jpg background stayed...

You can also hide all desktop icons in another way. First make sure the settings 'Show desktop icons' described above is checked. Then open the desktop properties, go to 'Desktop', choose 'Customize desktop', and uncheck the 4 desktop icons in the General tab. Then click OK, OK to return to the desktop, and manually delete the remaining shortcuts. This does not enable Active Desktop (GeneralFlags = 4), and again this keeps my .jpg background...

I really wonder what you mean with 'in order to keep any background picture'. Please try the things above, and first make sure iconoid (or other desktop tweaking software) is not loaded, because that really only makes things more complicate Also make sure you use the latest video drivers for your card, they can often fix 'strange display problems'.

Oh and btw, you can attach multiple images in a single post now...

By now we have changed some registry settings so many times we have lost track of what is what. We have now tried again the Arrange Icons By and unchecked the Show Desktop Icons. In the past whenever we did that the desktop picture would disappear but this time we now have all the icons gone and the picture still there! (It is a .bmp.)

If only we could figure out how to get the AD to turn off so we could get the icon background text transparent for future configurations. For now this is sufficient. Thank you to all who helped.