Transparent Icon Text on Desktop

Sorry, this is a minor problem but it's irking me. My XP desktop at work is showing the old-style icon titles (with the colored background) as opposed to the newer style icon titles with the drop-shadow. Can't figure out how to change it.

Google'd for some answers, nothing seems to work. My "Lock Web Items to the Desktop" option isn't checked, the option to enable icon title shadows is enabled in my System/Advanced/Performance options, and I'm not running any active web content on the desktop.

I've compared all desktop settings to my XP notebook, and can't see anything different.

The only thing that comes to mind is the fact that our group policy doesn't permit us to change the desktop wallpaper, even those of us with local admin privileges, we're stuck with a hideous corporate desktop. Could be that the gp is also preventing the transparent icons, but then I'd have figured that option would be grayed out, like the wallpaper.

FWIW, I managed to circumvent the lockdown on the desktop wallpaper and replace it with my own, but I can't see how that would affect my icon text.

Anyone have any ideas?

Thanks in advance....

Cheers,
KV

First check your color settings to see if they are at 32bit instead of 16 bit. I know most of the computers at my work the I.S. team will just set them up and pay no attention to the color or refresh rate settings. I would start there and then see what happens. Good Luck.

Right click on Desktop|Properties|Appearance tab|change "Windows and Buttons" to Windows XP.