Display Properties Tabs are missing

[Petef56]

Display Properties Tabs are missing.
This problem drove me crazy for a few days so
I'm posting the solution for anyone else who
might come across it.

Problem: After a virus/spyware attack and WinXP cleaned, the Display Properties applet was missing all the tabs (Themes, Desktop, Screensaver, Appearance, Settings) but it was displaying the normal Themes portion.

After applying various registry fixes to restore the tabs, the problem remained the same. See fix# 285.. http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

I also ran.. SFC /scannow, but it did not solve the problem.

I also reinstalled the video driver, but it did not solve the problem.

I then noticed that tapping the TAB key a few times would show something similar to this.. == ,where the Themes tab normally appears. Then I could use the cursor keys to move across the tabs (Themes, Desktop, Screensaver, Appearance, Settings)
and they were fully functional. So the tabs were there, but the labels were invisible.

Solution: Upon further research, I found that this problem could be solved by replacing the file.. C:\WINDOWS\WindowsShell.Manifest, which could be either missing or corrupted. In my case, it was corrupted, so I simply copied the file from one of my other XP computers to replace it. Problem solved!

---pete---