There are several possibilities here.
1) Did you have the Taskbar set to Auto Hide? If you move your cursor down to the area on the screen where the taskbar is supposed to display, it should pop into view. If the "Lock Taskbar" feature was unchecked, it is possible that the Taskbar was accidentally dragged to another screen location. Try slowly moving your cursor to the 4-sides of the screen. If you see the Taskbar come into view, you can right-click on a blank area of the Taskbar and select "Properties". Then uncheck the "Auto hide" function and drag the Taskbar back where you want it to occupy.
2) Does the Start Menu appear when you press the Ctrl key and the Esc key at the same time? If not, the likely cause is a corrupted user file. You can correct this problem by following the steps outlined in this Microsoft Help page:
Taskbar is missing when you log onto Windows If you get to the third step on this page: Method 3: Repair Windows XP instead of just reinstalling Windows XP, what I would suggest that you try first is to run the Windows System File Check utility which is build into Windows. To run it follow these steps: 1. Click Start
2. Click Run
3. Type in: sfc /scannow
4. Click OK
The scan will take about 45 minutes or so to run. If you see a Window popup saying that you need to insert your Windows XP CD into the CD-ROM drive, please do that and click OK.. If you don't have a Windows XP CD-ROM (many new computer systems do not include the OS CD), see This page
The SFC Utility should correct the problem, but if not then you can try the repair process as described on the MS page.
3) The Desktop Icons can be set to display or not using this method: Right-click on any empty space on the Desktop and select "Arrange icons by" --> "Show Desktop Icons". Your click on the item will either check or uncheck the option. Desktop icons display when this option is checked.
By the way, the keyboard shortcut (Alt key pressed and held)
Alt + TAB (TAB key pressed and released) will display all programs that are running. If only one program icon is displayed, only 1 program is running. If more than 1 icon is displayed, you can move your selection by pressing and releasing the TAB key again. When you have selected the program that you want, release both keys and that program will be restored to view.
If none of these suggestions work, I would suspect that there is some kind of problem with your
AOL setup and I would suggest you contact AOL for assistance with this. You may be able to contact them via phone or online chat for step-by-step instructions.
AOL Technical SupportAnd if none of the above helps, please post again. Please let us know what steps you have taken and what the result was.
Dwight
