No icons on desktop.

I'm assigned to a computer at work and a previous user (who doesn't work here anymore) set it up somehow so that no icons show on the desktop. You can't even drag items onto the desktop. No one in the firm knows what he did or how to undo it. How do I get it back to normal?

I'm using MacOSX 10.4.11

He may have a 3rd-party utility running in the background designed to keep the desktop "clean". It seems I knew of one, but can't recall the name of it. In the System Preferences, under Accounts, can you see what apps are loading on startup?

can you set up a new user profile and delete his old one - or was his old one the administrator?

Hmmm. I don't know. I've been working from this profile for a while. Is there any way to make sure I get all my files to the new profile?

As for the startup items, the list shows:
-ATI Monitor
-iCalAlarmScheduler
-MenuShade
-AdobeResourceSychronizer
-LCCDaemon

I know MenuShade just hides the menu bar at the top so it doesn't burn the screen and I'm okay with that.

P.S. Sorry for my delayed response. It's hard to find time to do this stuff when I'm at work.

Oh yes, and his old profile IS the admin.

The simplest thing for you to do is to create a new user with admin privileges. Then, while logged into the old user, copy all your files you need to keep over to the old user's PUBLIC folder. Next, log into your new user and copy everything from the old user's Public folder to your new User Home folder. This should ensure that the ownership permissions get changed to you. Once copied to your Home folder, just re-arrange everything to your liking (into Documents folder, etc).

If you have trouble finding everything you need to copy over, like bookmarks and such, holler back. Some things you may need to recover are scattered throughout the user Library.

The previous user might have removed all access privileges from the desktop:
Apple - Support - Discussions - Prevent saving to desktop ...