| THE | E | LIST | N | EWS |
| by Mr. E | ||||
“An Error Occurred While Windows Was Working with the Control Panel file C:\Windows\System\DESK.CPL” Win98, Win ME (New content 6/5/02)
DESK.CPL is the Control Panel applet that handles desktop properties. It’s what pops up both when you right-click the desktop and select Properties, or when you launch Display in Control Panel. If you get the above error message when attempting either of these means of modifying desktop properties, a third-party video driver or utility is probably at fault. In particular, the Diamond Viper 550 and Diamond InControl Tools have been implicated, but I doubt that it’s the only card that could produce this problem.
To solve the problem you need to uninstall the offending video software, including some manual Registry surgery. After this, a new copy of DESK.CPL needs to be extracted from your Windows CD, and then the video drivers reinstalled. The article walks you carefully through each of the steps.