Laurel  wrote:

><<The icons that appeared on the desktop were
>larger than "normal" icons and have an "x" in the corner. I deleted the
>icons from my desktop but the blank boxes remain on my desktop...>>


Are you sure they are shortcuts?  If you dragged and dropped with left
mouse button, you may have copied the actual files onto your desktop. If
these are in use (ie if your games are running in any way at startup, these
files might be locked as "in use"). Always use the right button for drag n
drop---the left button gives you no choices.

First, open the Desktop folder, usually in C/Documents and Settings/Your
username/Desktop and see if you can delete them or investigate their
properties from there. Do you get any error message when you try to delete?

Second, reboot into Safe Mode and then try deleting them.

Third, open Task Manager (Ctrl/Alt/Del) and close anything that might
conceivably be using these files. Then delete them.

There's a 4th way of getting rid of "in-use" files, but it's a bit complex
to relate here in full detail.  In short, you can run the command line,
navigate to the file and complete a "delete" command but don't execute it
yet, then use Task Manager to close Explorer, then execute the command
line.  This will delete any files which might be keyed into Explorer---not
likely in this case.  Some spyware and security files operate in this way.

Tell us what happens with any of the above methods. Make notes as you go,
especially details of any error messages.

Don Penlington



 From the Beach at Surfers Paradise in sunny Queensland.
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