FIX: Weird Circle on Desktop in Windows 7

Some third-party programs (such as Daemon Tools and Mouse Suite 98) can cause an unusual and weird circle to appear on the Desktop of a Windows computer. This weird circle cannot be interacted with, although your mouse pointer is going to change shape if you place it right over it and clicking on it may give it a drop shadow. The circle does not have any actual purpose, is not at all native to Windows 7 and is pretty annoying as it appears on the Desktop – the center of Windows 7. On the other hand, the circle is not harmful or malicious either.

Thankfully, though, if you want to remove the circle, you can do so by simply uninstalling the program that has created the circle. In order to get rid of the weird circle on your Desktop, you need to:

1. Open the Start Menu.
2. Search for “add or remove programs”.
3. Click on the search result titled Add or remove programs.
4. One by one, right-click on an application installed on your computer (starting with the most recently installed application and then working your way up), click on Uninstall and go through the uninstallation wizard to uninstall the application from your computer, checking to see whether or not the weird circle disappears after uninstalling each application.
5. Stop uninstalling applications once the weird circle disappears. The application you uninstalled right before the circle disappeared is the application responsible for the circle, so you can go ahead and reinstall all of the applications you uninstalled except for that one.

If you don’t remember the order in which you installed your computer’s most recently installed programs or if you simply don’t want to go through the trouble of uninstalling applications one by one, you can get rid of the unusual circle on your Desktop by performing a System Restore to a date before the circle existed. However, this is only going to work if a system restore point was created before your computer started suffering from this problem. In addition, any and all applications and updates installed on your computer after the system restore point in question was created will be uninstalled, so be sure to reinstall them following the System Restore. In order to perform a System Restore on a Windows 7 computer, you need to:

1. Press the Windows Logo key + R to open a Run
2. Type rstrui.exe into the Run dialog and press Enter to launch the System Restore utility.
3. Click on Next. If System Restore recommends that you restore your computer to an automatically chosen restore point on this screen, select the Choose a different restore point option and then click on Next.
4. Click on your desired restore point from the list provided to select it, and then click on Next. Be sure to select a restore point that was created well before the weird circle showed up on your Desktop.
5. On the Confirm your restore point screen, click on Finish.
6. Click on Yes in the dialog box that pops up to begin the System Restore.

Windows will restart and begin restoring the computer to the chosen restore point. The whole process may take a considerable amount of time, so all you need to do is be patient and, once the process is complete and the computer boots up, check to see whether or not the weird circle really is gone.