I am seeking advice

[rita alexander]

lost my start menu and desktop icons

 

[soundguruman]

I think running a repair install of XP will fix that. See the XP forum, This forum fourth post from the top for the directions.
The repair install does not erase your files or reformat the drive, but it does set the start up batch files back to default, which makes the icons and taskbar re-appear.

 

[aford10]

Hey rita,

It sounds like explorer crashed. Here's how to fix it.
press ctrl+alt+delete-->open the task manager-->file-->new task-->type explorer.exe and press enter-->the taskbar and icons should be restored.

 

[rita alexander]

thanks