Windows GUI Help!

"Michael" wrote in message

 >A few months ago I started a position at this small company. The previous
 > guy configured the desktop of one of the monitoring servers in a truly
 > heinous fashion. He did things such as:
 >
 > - Removed the start bar altogether
 > - Desktop items are completely hidden
 > - Removed the ability to right-click
 > - God knows what else
 >
 > Anyway, the server has some pretty important information and we can't
 > safely
 > format the box and start from scratch so what I want to know is....what
 > registry keys do I need to set so that the Explorer shell is back to
 > out-of-the-box standards. Like is there a tree that I can export from a
 > server that I like and in turn import onto this server that would make
 > everything usable again?
 >
 > Thanks guys.
 >
 >
 > Michael
 >
 >


There are e few ways in which you can achieve this, but it all depends on
the way you are set up.

Is this server in a domain?
2000?
2003?
Are you running Active Directory Services?
If so is it a domain controller?
Are Group Policy Objects involved?

without knowing the answer to these, as an example:

You're machine is running 2000 Server in an Active Directory Domain and it
is not a Domain Controller.
This server is defined in Active Directory in an Organizational Unit and
there is a Group Policy Object associated with that OU.
Open the GPO for editing and start going through all the settings presented
in there.
For the settings that have a specification of 'defined' (enabled or
disabled) check the description (explanation) of the setting and decide if
you want to keep it defined (enabled or disabled). Change the setting
according to your preference.
Keep in mind that the changes you make to the GPO will apply to all machines
defined in that OU.
Once done, close the GPO editor and let the system do it's job, or force the
settings to be re-evaluated and applied.
For a 2000 system run secedit on the command line (just type secedit and it
will bring up the syntax help to be used.)
For a 2003 system run gpupdate on the command line.
If the server is a domain controller check out the Default Domain
Controllers GPO (and any other GPO associated with the Domain Controllers
OU.
Follow the same reasoning as before.

Hope this gets you started towards a solution.

george