Active Desktop has disappeared

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I’m running Windows 98 SE and IE 5. The “Active Desktop” feature has disappeared and I can’t figure out how to restore it. Reinstalling IE didn’t do it, and MS KB provides no help. Any ideas? Thanks!

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You should be able to turn Active Desktop on again by right clicking on the desktop, select Active Desktop, and View Active Desktop.

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But that’s just the problem! Active Desktop is gone from the context menu – it doesn’t appear as an option when you right-click the Desktop.

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Sorry, I thought you meant that it had become inactive. I’m not on my win98 system now, so I’ll have to check later and see if I have any other bright ideas.

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Hi fmurphy:
Can you find active desktop under Start/Settings? Just a thought.

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Check one other thing. Open an Explorer window, choose folder options & see if “Classic” is selected. If so, check custom & see if that makes a difference.

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Active Desktop does appear under Start | Settings. However, when I selected “View as Web page” all my icons disappeared, and I was only able to restore them by resetting Wallpaper to “None” and then re-selecting the previous wallpaper. By the way, without Active Desktop, the option to “stretch” the wallpaper is also missing from Display Properties. (This keeps getting weirder – maybe the answer would be to reinstall Win 98 altogether – an experience I think I’ll forgo for the present.)

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Apparently Active Desktop did not come with IE5, only IE4 SP2 (not exactly sure of the SP). Looks like you need to uninstall IE5, install IE4, then re-install IE5
Check the threads here and here for the source of this info. HTH

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According to Win98 help, active desktop is included with Win98, not Win95 and WinNT. I figure you’re using Win98 (since that’s where you posted your message). If you go to “Display Properties” and click on the WEB tab, you should be able to reactivate the Active desktop and (hopefully) find it available in the right click menu again. I found this info from “Start|Help” and type in “Active desktop” in the keywords on the index tab. Look at the active desktop interface information.

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Thanks for your persistence – but … there’s no “Web” tab in Display Properties!

I’m running Windows 98 SE – Active Desktop was there when the machine was new, but has since inexplicably disappeared.

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Go to Tools options in IE . Select the advance tab, scroll down and see if there is a ‘Use IE 4’ check box. If so checkit.
I remember having it when I was running IE5.0, but now I amd running IE5.5 and it is NOT there.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

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I’m using IE 5.0 but the “Use IE 4” checkbox is not there.

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Um…is TWEAKUI present?

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Very good question! TweakUI is present, and on the “IE” tab the box “Allow Active Desktop to be turned on or off” was _not_ checked. Once the box was checked Active Desktop returned.

End of thread – thanks for everyone’s contributions.

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