Solved Why does my Virtual XP desktop shows all of my Windows 7 desktop items

I have been running Virtual XP (VXP) under Windows 7 Pro (W7) for at least a year. Until a couple of days ago the VXP desktop had only about 10 items that I had put there myself, all being shortcuts to VXP programs, folders etc.

Then suddenly I found the VXP desktop was full to bursting, most of the items being what appear normally on my W7 desktop! I have no idea what caused this but I cannot see how to reverse it:

1. These desktop intruders show up as links to \\TSCLIENT files/folders.The actual icons displayed are all the basic XP "MS-DOS" icon, not the application icons as displayed by W7.
2. I cannot remove, i.e. delete, these icons. Where they are not shortcuts but links to items in the W7 Desktop folder itself, attempting to delete the icon actually deletes the linked item in the W7 host process. The VXP icon remains visible but "refers to a file that cannot be found".
3. If I delete the corresponding icon in W7, that works quite normally but has no effect on the VXP icon.

I would welcome any suggestions about what might have caused this situation and how to correct it.

I found this post interesting. I checked my Win7 Pro reg and found no instance of the TSCLIENT on my system. Then I checked the VXP and found multiple occurrences. Did some searching (I have lots of time on my hands) and found TSCLIENT seems to refer to a Terminal Server Client [tsclient] being installed with or without your approval.

Let me know if any of this helps.

Good luck
OlHenry

OlHenry said:

I found this post interesting. I checked my Win7 Pro reg and found no instance of the TSCLIENT on my system. Then I checked the VXP and found multiple occurrences. Did some searching (I have lots of time on my hands) and found TSCLIENT seems to refer to a Terminal Server Client [tsclient] being installed with or without your approval.

Let me know if any of this helps.

Good luck
OlHenry

Click to expand...

No help, I am afraid. \\TSCLIENT is simply the way the Virtual XP machine refers to the host Windows 7 machine.

I sorted things out by doing a System Restore on the Virtual XP machine. But I am no nearer to finding out why it happened in the first place.