System Icon within Control Panel of Windows XP is unresponsive

Hi There,

            Thank you so much for your quick reply to this question.  Incidentally, I do see the sysdm file within the System32 subdirectory of Windows.  When I double click on it, nothing happens.  When I right click on this file; select Open with Control Panel, it is also unresponsive as well.  In terms of Type of file, it does show it to be Control Panel extension within the properties of this file eventhough I did not see the extension of .cpl next to the file name of sysdm.

              In the meantime, I will go ahead and download the RNAV Removal Tool given within  your link.   That should allow for the uninstallation of the Norton Security Suite.  

              Any further advisement regarding how to get the System Icon within Control Panel to launch again will be greatly appreciated.

              Thank you

              George

Do you get any error messages when you click the icon?  Do any other CP icons work?

Hi There,

               Thank you for getting back with me so quickly : - )  There is not any error message which appears when an attempt is tried to launch the System Icon within Control Panel or when an attempt is made to launch it within the system 32 folder.  It is just unresponsive.  All of the other icons within CP work just fine.  

                With respect to your kind offer to give an alternative anti-virus program to the pre-existing Norton Security Suite, could you provide one in addition to a direct download link for obtaining it?  

                 Thank you so much once again for your quick responsiveness to this question in addition to your insightful feedback.  I will go ahead now and downlad the RNAV tool and report back the results.

                  George

I will respond back early in the morning.   It is 8:30pm here and time to be with my family.

The company I recommend is ESET,  and can be found at www.eset.com. Their product is called SmartSecurity.

Hi

        Fair enough and thank you so much once again.

        George

Hi

          I am sorry for omitting the version of XP on this laptop.  It is the Professional Edition, SP3.  At the moment, I am at work.  But, I will get back on this project tonight after carefully reviewing the latest suggestions.  

          Many thanks once again for the great feedback given to this post.  I will get back with everyone regarding my progress tonight.

           George

George, where are you with all this?

Hello Everyone,

               Sorry for the delay in getting back to this project.  I got pulled away from it because of other things going on.  At any rate, here is what I have found out so far using the registry tip Vanguard LH.  With the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\don't load
, I see the following three names with their Data values which are as follows: (Default) which has a value of (value not set)., ncpa.cpl with a Data value of No., and odbccp32.cpl with a Data value of No.    Of course, whenever the System icon is double-clicked within Control Panel, it never really launches.  There are not any error messages either.  It is just unresponsive.

                 I did try the "rundll32.exe" shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL "C:\WINDOWS\system32\sysdm.cpl", command at the Run section, but, I never could get to to full enter into the command line box.  The command parameter was getting substituted for earlier entries put into this box such as regedit, msconfig, etc.  I am not sure how to work around that part to see if this command parameter would manually load the System Icon.

                  George

> I did try the "rundll32.exe" shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL "C:\WINDOWS\system32\sysdm.cpl", command at the Run section

You shouldn't need all that. As I said in http:#a37764387 all it should take is

Start->Run, sysdm.cpl [Enter]

Hi Everyone,

             I am so very sorry for taking so long to get back to this question.  To be perfectly honest, I have several different projects going on with this one laptop.  At any rate, here is the current status of this situation which will prompt further technical guidance.  First, when I click Start > Run > entered sysdm.cpl > Enter, nothing really happens.  The System icon which belongs to Control Panel never launches.  And, secondly, after running the Norton Removal Tool downloaded from symantec.com which aided in completing the uninstallation of Norton PC Checkup, I no longer even see the System icon within Control Panel.  With this point in mind, I am going to need some step by step instructions for getting this applet within Control Panel to reappear.  I am assuming I can use my XP CD to restore the System icon.  But,  this is speculation on my part; could be wrong.  I do not want to make matters worse here.  So, I will wait for further instructions before proceeding here.

                I will look forward to reviewing any further suggestions given to this post.  

                George

Hi Everyone,

              Thanks so much for the followup suggestions.  I will be trying those out today.  Just in case it is needed, could someone provide a direct download link for Microsoft's TweakUI utility?

               Thank you
 
               George

http://windowsxp.mvps.org/tweakui.htm

It's under Featured Downloads and is in the forth row down, three over.

Hi Everyone,

             Thanks so much for the insightful feedback given to this question.  I am pleased to say this problem is now resolved.  Actually, it was a bit more complicated than I originally thought because of the chain reaction of events leading up to this problem.  Basically, the System icon was missing from Control Panel because of a corrupted operating system which was caused by a failing hard drive.  The conclusion of the hard drive failing was supported following an analysis of the drive using a Western Digital Diagnoistic test built or integrated into UBCD or Ultimate Boot CD.  

              If the hard drive itself was not failing, many if not all of the suggestions would certainly had proven fruitful in the resolution of this problem.  This problem was resolved by removing the battery from the laptop so no power was going to it, removing the defective IDE 80GB Western Digital Harddrive from the laptop, installing a new IDE 160GB Western Digital Harddrive, installing Windows XP Pro SP2, and loading drivers which were not loaded by the OS after installation.  Now, everything works great on the laptop once again.  

               Thanks again everyone for the well thought out ideas and suggestions given to this post.

               George