"Internet Explorer cannot find the Active Desktop HTML file"

[nogarap]

I've got a Win2K3/AD domain. I've just built an image for a laptop, and am having problems. When I log into the laptop as an ordinary domain user, I get the message "Internet Explorer cannot find the Active Desktop HTML file. The file is needed for your active desktop. To turn off active desktop, click OK".
What I should have is our corporate wallpaper filling the desktop, but what I'm getting is a menu type area on the left hand side (with 'Folder tasks', Make a new folder, 'Other Places', My Docs, My Network Places, and 'Details'), with the wallpaper taking up the remaining 80% of the screen area. The wallpaper isn't squashed, but the menu area seems to be covering up the left hand part of the wallpaper.
I googled the error, but all the MS stuff refers back to IE4 and the early days of Active Desktop. Their recommendations refer to copying a new copy of mshtml.dll to the windows folder and re-registering it. I followed this procedure, but no joy.
If I log in as an Admin, no error message, and the wallpaper displays fine. This has me thinking it's down to file permissions on some file, but which one?
I've changed the perms on mshtml.dll, and desktop.ini, so that users have change perms, but to no avail.
Any bright ideas please?
I'll be very happy if somebody can think of anything, as I don't want to have to do the laptop buld again!
Many thanks
Gaz

 

[linney]

See if it is anything similar to these type of situations?

For Common Tasks issue:
Click Start, Run and type "regsvr32 /i shell32". Restart Windows. If this does not help, download the fix from Doug Knox's site:

Removes Common Tasks from Desktop

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/scripts_desc/xp_commtask_desktop.htm

15. Remove Common Tasks from the Desktop

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=957714&page=1

Windows Explorer menu on desktop
thread779-1073234

 

[nogarap]

Thanks for the tips. It didn't fix my problem, but they were interesting anyway. I think I've doen something stupid somewhere. I'm thinking I mucked up the perms on the 'default user' profile. Anyway, I've got time to do the whole thing again from scratch, and I'll just have to do a better job this time!

 

[nogarap]

Sorted it! It was a group policy setting! I changed User Settings/Admin templates/Desktop/Active Desktop/ Enable Active Desktop from 'Enambled' to 'Not Configured', and it's done the trick, which I'm very happy about.
I redid the build, and achieved exactly the same results as the first time!
What I did differently from when I usually do images is I configured the wallpaper for my model user (I configure the menus/settings for my model user, then copy that profile over the default user one).
We have this awful corporate wallpaper, which lives at c:\ on the machines, and is usually configured by group policy. Usually I don't configure this for the model user, and let group policy do it. However, there's a 3-5 second period where the screen goes to the background colour when the users log on, so I guess I was thinking to configure the wallpaper for the user, thinking that when we have that 3-5 second period, it will still display the corporate image, before GP kicks in and displays it again.
I guess there must have been some conflicts trying to display this wallpaper, and process group policies at the same time.
I love group policies , but sometimes they can be a mixed blessing!
Anyway, all's well that ends well, unless the setting I've changed lets the users cause some other damage!