My desktop icons and start button are back, but I had to do a system recovery which is what I meant by a “non-destructive F10”. It’s time consuming but at least I have my computer back in operating order. I still don’t know what caused them to disappear, but I think it would more likely be due to the registry cleaning than to running Avast4. I don’t want to reveal the name of the registry cleaning program I used because it was most likely operator error that caused the damage and not the program itself.
I think it won’t be that trouble if you reveal the name of the application.
We can be warned.
The manufacturer could see if the problem is on its side.
Anyway, none registry cleaner is perfect: or too deep, removing legit entries, or too simple, removing almost nothing… :
Thanks for letting us know.
However, this on its own will not be recognised in isolation (causing confusing) and should have been added to the thread you started about the problem.
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=15852.0
That will show the solution alon with the problem.