Why has the bottom half onf my computer screen gone blank?

[jean]

Or rather, why have all the icons that normally appear in a strip along the bottom moved halfway up the screen, and the rest of the screen is pale pink and unusable? I am using Firefox.

I obviously pressed something I shoudn't have, but what?

[Dave2002]

Windows or Mac OS?

Have you tried switching off and back on again?
The pink screen sounds like a hardware setting or hardware fault.

[french frank]

Is this any help (assuming it's not a hardware fault)?

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_other-desktop/my-task-bar-is-half-way-up-my-desk-top-how-can-i/d2ded3b4-45ed-41ee-80e3-17173c9a4852?auth=1

Second thoughts - no, I think it sounds a different problem. More likely hardware.

Or rather, why have all the icons that normally appear in a strip along the bottom moved halfway up the screen, and the rest of the screen is pale pink and unusable? I am using Firefox.

I obviously pressed something I shoudn't have, but what?

[jean]

I think it might be what I want, but when I right click I get 'Lock the taskbar' as an option but I don't then seem to be able to do anything further.

The pink bit is actually transparent and when I display the desktop, it sort of comes and goes as I move the mouse, but I can't seem to fix it down at the bottom of the screen.

[jean]

I have managed to drag the blank buit off the bottom of the acreen, but in my enthusiasm have removed the old toolbar too and given myself a different one...no idea how it all happened.

Why do computers never tell you what you've just done and how to simply undo it? It would help stupid people enormously.

[Dave2002]

Looks like ff's suggestion was for Windows, so can I assume that you are running a flavour of Windows? I don't know the newer versions well enough to be able to make too many suggestions. However, the pink/transparency business does also feature in Mac OS, so perhaps you're running that after all.

You haven't said.

If it's Windows, then isn't there a System Restore feature on your machine which (if you're brave enough, and also have it active) might be able to reset the settings to before things started to go wrong?

That assumes that the display is being controlled and configured by the OS - which is pretty much the case for most Macs. PCs may use an external monitor, and they also can have settings which get unset, and that opens up yet another can of worms. You might need to (re-)configure the interface to the display. I have seen displays in which all the words have been written backwards, upside down, and in a foreign language, and typing was in the "wrong" direction. Some of those were a real pain to get right - though I did usually manage it.

[Anastasius]

Often CTRL-Z works well to undo things. Always worth a try regardless of flavour of computer.

[Dave2002]

We don't seem to be getting a reply from our OP.

[jean]

Sorry, I missed your #6.

Yes, I am using Windows. I managed to get rid of the blank bit (I don't really know how) so though the toolbar atthe bottom of the page got messed up in the process, I am too scared of what might happen to try to do anything further.

[Dave2002]

Which version of Windows? Most versions have some form of rescue system - think it's called System Restore which can wind things back to before the problem occurred. Not sure about the latest versions. The first time i tried it I thought things might go wrong, but they weren't so bad, and after that I used it quite a lot.

Probably others will be able to tell you whether this is a good idea for the newer versions of Windows. It may need to be anabled though, so if it's not already that won't help this time round.