My desktop emptied itself and doesn't allow me to add anything to it. This includes the HD icon.
I can access my desktop only through opening a Finder window and clicking until I get to desktop.

What do I do?

I don't really know anything about Mac's etc. but if you try a goggle search you do get quite a few results.

Thanks. I'm checking into it.

It worked! Thanks!

ETA: Is it just me, or is my computer slower now?

Err your welcome (not sure what I did, but Ill take a thanks if you are offering it freely)

I have no way of knowing...

What was the problem classified as and what was the solution? (did you restart first before you tried anything?)

Upgrade your ram.

Get a PC.

She's trying to solve her problems, not compound them.

Whatever you do, DON'T install Leopard

What's wrong with Leopard?

For starters you need an external HD for Time Machine. and it's still a bit buggy.
I'm waitin' it out and happy with Tiger (though Leopard's dock is way cooler..we see 2 & want 4..the way of life)

That is hardly a bug, backing up your system to the same HD it is installed on is not a very wise move.....

For starters, I can't burn discs, more than a few pieces of software don't work anymore, the new X11 is horrid and breaks practically every app that relies on it. The finder is in general buggy and much more unstable than previous versions yada yada yada...

So far the only appreciable difference i see is "eye candy" which is pretty useless if nothing works properly....

I totally agree on backing up to a separate system or two. I was referring to the rest of it. As with anything advanced, tehre's always bugs.

I had to move User/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist to my desktop and restart. That did it.




About Leopard: I don't see any reason to upgrade. Unlike Tiger, which has Spotlight aka Google for OS X.

No you didn't, you had to move or delete that preference file so the system would automatically generate a new one. It makes no difference where you put it...

I realized that later. At the time I just monkey see monkey do-ed.

You probably didn't have to restart either, logging out or force quitting the Finder would probably have been sufficient....

Relaunching didn't work. Restarting is almost easier than relogging in.

Uh, Spaces? Super-handy for running work-related Winblows apps and separating work and play mac areas.

I'm stuck on PPC, no windows apps