Anilrgowda

Question: It seems that when I right ckick on an application, it delivers a box with a selection of putting an Icon on my desktop. After making this selection, it does not do any selection.

Anilrgowda

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It is VERY strange you are not seeing what is standard for XP Professional. (The group policies)
This is just a home computer right?
Do you know if your username has Administrative rights on the computer (Part of the administrators group)?

To Check click on start, then run and type in lusrmgr.msc then hit enter. (Thats a lower case L not an I)
Then click on groups, then click on Administrators
That will list the users that are administrators on the machine.
Then if you don't know the username you use to login as Right click on your start button, select explore.
You will end up in a window and hopyfully in the blue title bar it will say something like C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Start Menu
The part is between the documents and settings and start menu is your currently logged in username.