I recently upgraded from 11-10 to 12.04 as a dual boot (Windows 7) and am having problems with shutting down. I installed from a CD that I burned from the iso file, and to get it to boot from the CD, I needed to install the special help program from Windows that would then recognize the CD as the system booted.The installation gave me my own user account as well as a guest account.

For the User account there is no "gear" icon (in the upper RH side) from which to access the shut down menu. Interestingly the icons for the Home folder, the Ubuntu One folder, and the System Settings folder are missing, although there are blank places shows these names if the mouse cursor is positioned over these areas. They will even launch with the press of a key - but no icons are visible.

For the Guest account, all of these icons are visible and usable.

The problem that occurs in shutting down is that I need to leave the User account, move to the Guest account (so that I can access the top right "gear" icon that has the shut down menu item) and press the shut down button. The problem here is that when the shut own menu appears and I press the confirmation that I wish to shut down the computer, the page blanks (as one might hope in the process of closing down), and then pops up with the log in menu, giving the option of logging in as a User or as a Guest.

So the questions are:

1) how do you reinstate the far right top icon from which you can access the shut down drop down menu in the User account page.

2) how do you get the icons to display properly on the Left hand side (Home, Ubuntu One, System Settings, and Workspace Switcher)

3) how do you get the system to turn of when you press the shut down button!

Boy oh boy!

Thanks a bunch for any help!