An icon appeared out of nowhere

does anyone know what this is?

Published on August 2, 2007 By TampaMike In Animated Wallpapers

I'm running Vista Ultimate with a (don't laugh) Nvidia 7300 vid card.
I was unable to view any dreamscenes or dreamscape desktops.
A few days ago I installed the Elecard MPEG-2 decoder and streaming pack.
I was then able to view all dreamscene files and most .dream files.
In my quest to view the ones that still didn't work, I installed
ffdshow and was still unable to view certain .dream files.
Then it happened... I noticed an icon that sat in the top right corner
of the .dream or dreamscene desktop that hadn't been there before.
It's not there for any other desktop such as a photo or solid color.
I uninstalled ffdshow and it was still there.
I did an earlier system restore... still there.
I ran adware prgrams and a virus check on the entire system... still there.
I googled the shit out of this phantom icon and found nothing.
Does ANYONE have a clue what the hell it is????
It's a small 1/2" rectangle made up of 9 tiny white boxes.
I have a screen shot of it here my phantom icon

just in case that didn't work.... here's the address,
http://mikesuz.com/mike/images/desktop.jpg

H E L P ! ! ! !

Comments (Page 1)

Bichur

on Aug 02, 2007

is it movable?

is it clickable?

Erk.

on Aug 02, 2007

One of my rigs runs Vista Ultimate, and I use/have many dreams ...and I can assure you that no icon or anomalies appear on my desktop at all. Therefore I can tell you that it's not a Stardock product that has done this, so I'd be looking to the other things you installed.

I know that's not a lot of help, but at least it has narrowed things down for you..

Skinhit

on Aug 02, 2007

maybe its that Vid Card?

WebGizmos

on Aug 02, 2007

Try the deleting from desktop steps to see if it tells you what it is.

c242

on Aug 02, 2007

Looks like some Virtual Desktop programs' grid to me.

vStyler

on Aug 02, 2007

Looks like some Virtual Desktop programs' grid to me.

yep, or some other 3rd party app.. which may somehow be being activated when u run a dream for some reason. I'd check my running processes.

TampaMike

on Aug 02, 2007

No, it's not movable nor clickable (left OR right)

TampaMike

on Aug 02, 2007

Looks like some Virtual Desktop programs' grid to me.

yep, or some other 3rd party app.. which may somehow be being activated when u run a dream for some reason. I'd check my running processes.

I have checked my running processes looking for malware and found nothing abnormal.
Perhaps I can look closer. My hunch is that ffdshow is the culprit. You might think uninstalling ffdshow along with a system restore would do the trick... guesss not!

Bichur

on Aug 02, 2007

it also looks like the user account grid for logon studio

ShelbyGT_The_Car

on Aug 02, 2007

It has to have a process - try crashing by closing at random the process you do not recognize first and make note so when you crash you can go on to the next set of process's that you did once already till you find which one is the culprit. Once you find it - look for the file and where it comes from. That may give you some insight - bad thing tho is that it may have written to a dll in system file and has been associated to the system. Which being shared assoc. - removing it may cause other problems with dll allocations in memory or such.
Good luck and you may find where it came from or not. But you are sure to find where and what it is. Dealing with it may be not so easy.

SGT

TampaMike

on Aug 03, 2007

I've looked at my processes and I admit that I am not high enough along
the geek ladder to understand them all. I've googled them but that hasn't
really helped me. I've noticed one named desktop window manager that must
be new in Vista, I don't recall it in XP. It's steadily using the CPU but
armed with that information, what would I do next?? Have a look.
Hopefully this image will work below this, if not, it resides at:
http://mikesuz.com/mike/images/processes.jpg

bobbyhundreds

on Aug 03, 2007

Hey,TampaMike,are you familiar with a program called 'Hijackthis'?
If you download it,run it and copy the detailed log of running processes it produces to here someone might be able to identify your rogue app.Just a thought.

ShelbyGT_The_Car

on Aug 03, 2007

I'd leave the dwm.exe alone - it is needed to run the desktop. But DSAgnt.exe and the 2 rundll32.exe has a host process running in it. That could be it - one of those or even maybe that nero home. If you are using the wrong nero or even got a bad install of nero - seems I've seen something along this same line with nero.
Kill those one at a time and see what gives. If it is a rundll host process - you are gona have to find what starts it in the prefetch and or regs.[Not gona be easy being a host process] But you may find what program it is associated to and remove it or have it reconfigured [?]

I'll bet it's nero!

SGT

Fairyy~

on Aug 03, 2007

This is total long shot ...I know zip about vista or dreams...

but ive had phantom icons before...

First Rightclick on desktop and see if " lock web items on desktop" is checked ...then uncheck it.

Try display properties > desktop tab > customize desktop > web tab. see if anything is in the web page box ..delete them....click ok.

TampaMike

on Aug 03, 2007

First, allow me to thank everyone who has offered advice.
Keep it coming!!!!
THE PLOT THICKENS....
Today I observed that the icon appears when using any microsoft
supplied file and any .dream file HOWEVER, it's not there if I
play one of my own mpg or wmv files via dreamscene.

Mike

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