I got home from work tonight, got the kids logged off the video game they were playing, and all my desktop icons were big. Grrr... I got into Control panel>Display>Appearance>Advanced>Item>Icon>Size, and changed the icon size. Which gave me nice small desktop icons, but everything else stayed big--the boxes that pop up to dial up my internet connection or log into my IM, icons and toolbars in all programs, (except for the bottom taskbar), layout and avatars in x4, everything. Any idea what they did?

Click Start, and then Open Control Panel.
Open Display.
Click the Settings Tab.

What are your settings for Screen Resolution?

I am guessing 800 by 600.

If so, crank it up to 1024x768 or 1280x1024.

Also, from Display and the Appearance Tab, Check your Font Size.

Is it set to Large or Extra Large?

It was 1024 x 600. Only goes up to 1280 x 800. (It's a Sony laptop with a rather widescreen ratio.) Okay, if I put it at about 3/4 resolution and go back and put the icon setting at about where I think it was, that looks pretty normal. Still looks a little off, but maybe that's just from looking at it so long.

Thanks! I did stumble across the problem, I think: some checkbox that said to automatically change it for video games when necessary. In this day and age, couldn't they also make it revert when the game is closed? Sheesh.

I think a simple restart will take care of that too.

Works for me anyway...after Quake 4 does the same thing to my puter.