question about my start menu

The red off button has disappeared from my start menu , all that's left is the yellow log off button. How do I get this back?

Thanks

 

Have you made any changes to the registry recently???

 

You may not be an administrative user somehow... did you change anything in the user control panel? Change permissions? Add a user? The power disabling is usually the result of your user not having enough permission to control the power state of the computer.

 

Alright, so I just got home from work with hopes that the icon would be back, but of course its not. Actually, not only is the log off icon gone from the start menu, but my synaptic touch pad icon and antivirus also disappeared. When I do a search for the touchpad icon and click on it, it shows back up on the tool bar, but disappears when I restart.

I've tried searching for remedies on google with little luck. I'm thinking maybe some sort of automatic clean up removed them. I'm definitely the administrative user as I'm the only user. I've searched all over the control panel to try and fix the problem. At this point I'm all out of ideas. Does anybody have any other suggestions? I really don't know a ton about computers beyond the basics so any help would be greatly appreciated.

thanks.

 

You can add my Intel wireless icon to the list. I didn't notice it before, but its gone too. Wow this sucks

 

do u happen to have a restore point available? use it. And I would definitively perform a system scan

cheers ...

 

OK, so it turns out I had a trojan virus, at least that's what I gather from researching this site and others. I'm not too familiar with viruses and how they work, but I'm guessing it came from one of the bittorrent files I downloaded.

Anyway, I called dell for help, and after a couple hours they claimed the only thing I could was to completely restore the system to the way it was when I received it 5 months ago (he had me turn it on and press f11 as soon as the dell logo came up, which brought up the restore screen). All my files and software were erased, and all the crappy software that came my computer came back. This wasn't that big of a deal, I've pretty much already replaced all my software, though I lost all my music, video, and word files.

I was wondering if this total restore is the only way of dealing with viruses? And, is there a way to avoid this in the future? I try to watch what I download, but I guess you never know. Also, I'm currently using norton's av, and I guess I thought the purpose of having an antivirus program was to protect your computer from this sort of thing. Am I wrong about this?

 

Unfortunately, yes, that's the only way to deal with a virus that your AV software doesn't catch (or if the AV software screws up the removal, or Windows decides to corrupt the registry, or...), unless you're a Windows expert. And anyone who tells you that they are, isn't one. The way to avoid it under Windows is basically to not use the computer on the Internet. If you have to, use something like Firefox, stay out of dodgy sites, don't install or download any software from the Internet except stuff you specifically opt to download from a safe location, keep your AV updated, and keep your important files backed up. Or just use Linux Antivirus protects you from things that the AV company knows about, but it can rarely do anything against a brand new virus that they've never seen before. Welcome to Windows.

 

In lieu of never using the internet, I would say to just go to sites you trust. Update your antivirus and antispyware often (auto-updates work too), and SCAN EVERY FILE YOU DOWNLOAD. The last one is most important if you're peer to peer file sharing (like Bittorrent).

Typically, if your AV can detect a virus, you may be able to remove most of it. However, restoring is the only 100% sure way of removing it, and it is probably the easiest.

 

i have had this one, had to create a new user then get rid of my current one - not nice