Hi guys. I just installed 2 new freeware thingies off the 'net onto my laptop, and in both cases I had the option to place an icon on the desktop selected during the install. And for some reason nothing happened. Both times, no icon appeared. I was using winxp home sp2, using a "limited" account, but using the "run as" function in administrator mode during the install. First time this has ever happened to me. Weird...
Maybe they are there and you just cant see them. Try going to documents and settings, user and then desktop. I bet the shortcuts will be there. Why they wont show is another matter.
First thing I want to do is congratulate you for running as a limited user and using the "run as" command! The reason the icons are not showing on your desktop is because the 'Run As' command temporarily logs you on as an Administrator. Therefore, the program is running from the Administrator user profile "c:\documents and settings\administrator\desktop". The program should have stuck the desktop shortcut in "c:\documents and settings\all users\desktop" so that all users on the computer can have access to it, but unfortunately most Windows programmers are stuck in the 1980s. Anyway, enough about that. What you need to do is log out and log back in as Administrator. Go to the "c:\documents and settings\administrator\desktop" folder and move the desktop shortcut to the "all users" folder. You may have to do the same thing for the start menu folders "c:\documents and settings\administrator\start menu\programs". This is obviously a pain but is worth putting up with for all the security you get by running as a limited user.