Desktop icons missing or disappeared

Posted on August 4, 2008 at 5:34 am

Were you working on your computer and suddenly find all of your Windows XP desktop icons missing? This has happened to me before and it can be very annoying! In most cases everything disappears, including your Start Button and Taskbar!

Normally in order to get out of this situation, you have to restart your computer and hope that whatever cramped up XP is now gone. Your icons can be missing from your desktop for two reasons, either something has gone wrong with the explorer.exe process, which handles the desktop, or the icons are simply hidden.

The latter method is easier to fix. First, right-click on the desktop and choose Arrange Icons By. Next check the Show Desktop Icons item.

show desktop icons

Pretty simple! But unfortunately, that’s normally not the reason why your desktop icons are missing. The second method involves restarting the explorer process without having to restart Windows.

Press CTRL + ALT + DEL and click on Task Manager.

task manager

Now in the Task Manager, you want to click on File and then New Task (Run). Make sure you are on the Processes tab.

file new task

In the Open box, go ahead and type in explorer.exe and click OK.

explorer exe

That’s it! This will cause the registry to be reloaded and hopefully get your desktop icons, taskbar, and Start Button back!

If these methods do not work, you may have something corrupted in Windows that requires some messier tactics. I would suggest running System File Checker, which will check for missing and damaged Windows files and repair them. You can run it by going to Start, run, typing CMD and then typing sfc /SCANNOW.

Hope it helps! Let me know if you were able to get your icons back or not! Enjoy!

» Filed Under Computer Tips

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Comments

58 Responses to “Desktop icons missing or disappeared”

  1. Shivaranjan said on : August 4th, 2008 at 7:11 am

    I have encountered this error before and use the same technique to restore them back. Windows Vista seems to be better of with this issue as till now i have not encountered this problem in Windows Vista


  2. Stephen said on : August 11th, 2008 at 9:58 am

    Hi there,

    I have this problem but i cannot see the start button or click on anything so i cannot go to start and run a scan. And when I hold down ctrl alt and del it just starts the shut down proccess without even asking me if I want to shut it down… Please help!!?? My girlfriend needs it to get a job asap!!

    Cheers,
    Stephen


  3. Wendy said on : August 26th, 2008 at 2:30 pm

    None of the above fixes worked. I went in my document and settings\desktop folder and launched one item out of that folder. After I closed that one item all of my icons came back.


  4. Kaleel said on : August 27th, 2008 at 6:11 am

    Hi..

    Thanks for your piece of info. It worked well in windows Vista as well.

    kaleel


  5. Ron said on : January 16th, 2009 at 11:11 pm

    I too was having a hell of a time repairing a non bootable desktop after logging into Windows Xp Pro.
    Was hit with a Brontok.x worm and after much researching and hitting and missing I came across a Removal Tool from Bit Defender
    http://www.bitdefender.com/site/Downloads/browseFreeRemovalTool/
    Selected the Brontok.a from the list and run it in the affected computer and pressco the Desktop appeared and also the missing Folder Options under the Tools menu of Explorer.
    Hope this assists the next person in fixing these unwanted problems.
    Cheers
    Ron


  6. Edward said on : January 17th, 2009 at 1:27 am

    that trick works temporarily for me,im using vista and it works everytime but i have to do it EVERY TIME i turn my computer on,please advise?


  7. Cinthya said on : February 5th, 2009 at 1:46 am

    This worked out but it wasn’t a permanent fix. Does anyone have any ideas on how to make this permanent.


  8. Kathleen said on : February 16th, 2009 at 12:33 am

    thanks! worked well enough to move files off and re-install windows.


  9. amy said on : February 20th, 2009 at 10:52 am

    ANTIVIRUS 360 is horrible. I got it 4 days ago and I cannot get rid of it…Microsoft Tech support did not help, infact I have a feeling they made it worse. I cannot even seem to access my desktop or view any of my icons. Therefore, I cannot install/uninstall or anything. Please help someone it would be much apppreciated.

    Before all my icons vaished I did download Malwarebytes, went through that whole process and found over 100 infected items, and the next day my screen went BLUE with some error messages…..I ran Malware bytes again (all of this done on SAFE MODE) found 10 items infected, restarted and then say my beautiful desktop for the last time before a BLUE screen appeared. Called again, downloaded something called “CompleteFix” I’m not to sure about the name which was supposed to totally remove any infections etc…and while it was running its fixes, my computer stalled and I had to manually restart it which disrupted the whole point of the program. Now I am stuck with nothing, no desktop, icons, internet, and files.

    Please contact me if you have any suggestions at all. I’m hopeless at this point


  10. Drae said on : March 8th, 2009 at 7:36 am

    My hero! Thank you so much.


  11. tony said on : March 26th, 2009 at 12:05 am

    hey! thanks man!!! my problem gone! appreciate u share this with us.


  12. Kate said on : March 27th, 2009 at 12:07 pm

    Thank you so much! Worked like a charm.


  13. Jill said on : April 7th, 2009 at 6:40 am

    Thanks – much more helpful than the Windows website.


  14. Diding said on : April 13th, 2009 at 11:04 pm

    Thanks a lot…God bless u…=) My desktop icons are no longer missing!


  15. Amina said on : June 3rd, 2009 at 7:35 am

    My desktop icons were gone from my laptop after I removed a particularly nasty virus/spyware. I thought the virus took my icons with it! I got on my other computer and did a search and found this page, and it worked like a charm! Thanks sooo much!


  16. Anon said on : June 3rd, 2009 at 10:34 pm

    LOL I can’t believe that my show desktop icons box was unchecked. that’s it? WOW!


  17. Vero said on : June 4th, 2009 at 11:43 pm

    dude, thank you so much!!! I was scared, thought my pc was corrupt but your instructions helped me. thanks again!


  18. tricia said on : June 20th, 2009 at 12:33 am

    thanks a lot! i thought it’s a major problem i encountered… explorer.exe did it. i love forums like this.. really helps a lot!


  19. shigin said on : June 25th, 2009 at 11:13 am

    When i was copying a dvd, my mother switched off the computer mistake. After that when I log into Windows, I can only see the wallpaper! All desktop icons disappeared (my computer, my documents) everything went! what to do now?


  20. Daniel said on : August 23rd, 2009 at 2:57 pm

    Thanks very much, now if my desktop icons ever disappear again I’ll know what to do.

    Thanks again!


  21. Gary said on : September 4th, 2009 at 7:51 am

    A variant on the Task Manager solution worked for me. First, look for an “existing” explorer process running in task manager. End this process, then select File – New Task(Run…)- enter EXPLORER in the task box and your desktop icons magically reappear. Apparently, the old explorer task is what gets corrupted. Ending process and starting a new process reloads it correctly in the registry.


  22. Fred said on : September 26th, 2009 at 10:08 am

    I have the same problem of no icons and no start button or task bar after rebooting with XP. I tried entering Explorer.exe in the “New TAsk (run) window of the processes tab but got a “Windows cannot find “explorer.exe” message. My wife is getting my bed ready in the doghouse if I don’t get this fixed asap.
    Thanks for any other help.


  23. Bo said on : September 26th, 2009 at 12:10 pm

    Hi! Does anyone have suggestions for someone who can’t open exe files and their desktop icons have disappeared? Everytime I type explorer.exe in the new task(run) field a box pops up saying choose the program you want to use to open. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated…


  24. tabreize said on : September 27th, 2009 at 2:44 pm

    i use vista business. Never encountered any virus/worm on my pc. Have AVG & windows defender. Today i switced on my laptop (on internal battery)after an unusually long break of 7-8 days. I entered my password, and the next thing i see is only my desktop-background picture with only ‘COMPUTER’ and ‘RECYCLE BIN’ icons available, all other icons gone, and a 4-line message saying that my win/system32/…/desktop is not available (or probably ‘could not be found’). Start menu was available however.

    Shocked, the first thing i did was to switch off my system and then restarted it (this time, on external battery). I dont know how, but on restart, everything came back! Makes me really worried. Can anyone plz comment on what that was, & chances of its recurrence?


  25. john said on : October 20th, 2009 at 8:55 am

    Please help, Tried explorer.exe trip but it didn’t work. explorer.exe was not listed so went down the create new task etc. That still didn’t work. Any more suggestions please.


  26. Dinesh said on : November 3rd, 2009 at 7:10 am

    If anyone faces same desktop icons missing with windows vista, try this method, sysprobs.com/windows-vista-desktop-icons-missing


  27. VJ said on : December 8th, 2009 at 12:27 am

    Above solution using explorer.exe as New Task worked for me. Thank you.


  28. Rajesh Kanuri said on : December 24th, 2009 at 6:53 am

    Thnks it is so simple to get my desktop icons back.. :)


  29. Pfeffa-rah said on : December 28th, 2009 at 4:28 am

    Thanks, that saved me a lot of time! Now I have my icons back.


  30. Dan said on : February 14th, 2010 at 8:10 pm

    OMG–thank you. Using the help area is no help at all. My kids must have did this by mistake. Thanks again for the quick and easy fix.


  31. jonathon j. said on : February 22nd, 2010 at 10:08 pm

    OMG i was freaking out!!! i thought my fairly new computer had a virus or something!!!! hahaha and idk how this even happened… oh well!!! THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH!!!!!


  32. TL said on : March 4th, 2010 at 11:43 am

    This worked for windows 7, thx!


  33. help said on : March 8th, 2010 at 9:58 am

    I use the usual ctrl – alt – dlt…. Task Manager… – New Task and type explorer/explorer.exe and then my desktop icons re-appear and my task bar does aswell …but everytime I log off my computer It’s all gone again and I have to keep re-doing it all over again and it’s annoying and I guess there’s still something wrong with my PC if I have to keep doing it,….. maybe it’s a virus or something corrupt with my internet explorer (maybe something with the settings), so anyone got any solutions so I don’t have to keep doing it everytime I log back on my PC?

    Thanks to who-ever replies with the correct answer/solution/fix.


  34. Jessie said on : March 10th, 2010 at 8:18 am

    Thank you, that was so easy. All my desktop icons have returned!


  35. Melvin said on : March 19th, 2010 at 11:17 am

    Does this work in WINDOWS XP? Because if I type in explorer.exe…it only closes the taskbar and it says that there’s an error…and i also tried in the command promt …i type sfc … then i choose the /SCANNOW…

    but it doesnt work also.. it only says that..

    “/SCANNOW is not recognized as an internal or external command,operableprogram or batchfile”

    plz help me…


  36. Juman said on : March 30th, 2010 at 10:36 am

    If your desktop icons are missing, you might have spyware or a virus. It’s best to run an anti-virus program and see if that helps.


  37. J D Chudasama said on : April 15th, 2010 at 5:00 am

    First one worked. Silly me. Didn’t know this? Anyway, thanks


  38. neta said on : April 17th, 2010 at 10:57 am

    This didn’t work for me! All my desktop icons are still missing! help!


  39. Loz said on : April 17th, 2010 at 2:56 pm

    Awesome, thanks I was totally lost!


  40. Akel said on : April 23rd, 2010 at 1:21 am

    I tried scf /scannow and it doesn’t work! My desktop icons have not come back! What to do!?


  41. Andre said on : April 25th, 2010 at 2:07 pm

    I don’t lose all the desktop icons, but I am losing shortcut icons I created (external backup drive, games). I never have this happen on my old XP desktop, but it happens about once a week on my Windows 7 laptop. Any ideas on why only some icons disappear while others remain?


  42. Mohit Bhagat said on : April 27th, 2010 at 7:03 am

    Thanks, my desktop icons were now showing, but this fixed it.


  43. Frank said on : May 6th, 2010 at 10:15 pm

    Your solution did the trick! Thanks!


  44. Cathy said on : May 24th, 2010 at 12:05 am

    you are awesome! I had lost all my icons and task bar and had tried for days to get them back but nothing. Then found your site and your solution worked! Thank you x 100!!!!!!!!!!!!


  45. Ravi said on : May 27th, 2010 at 8:27 am

    I am facing same problem

    I use the usual ctrl – alt – dlt…. Task Manager… – New Task and type explorer/explorer.exe and then my desktop icons re-appear and my task bar does aswell …but everytime I log off my computer It’s all gone again and I have to keep re-doing it all over again and it’s annoying and I guess there’s still something wrong with my PC if I have to keep doing it,….. maybe it’s a virus or something corrupt with my internet explorer (maybe something with the settings), so anyone got any solutions so I don’t have to keep doing it everytime I log back on my PC?

    Thanks to who-ever replies with the correct answer/solution/fix.


  46. Dawa said on : June 6th, 2010 at 1:07 am

    Bravo! you are the man!

    thanks


  47. Kaime said on : June 8th, 2010 at 8:53 pm

    Thanks for the information.

    Helped me a great deal.

    Regards,

    Kaime KIPI


  48. Ky said on : June 16th, 2010 at 11:40 pm

    For those having issues still with windows 7, right click on the background, go to view and make sure that view icons is checked.

    A symptom of this is that you cannot drag a box out on the desktop and you cannot see desktop icons.


  49. Jeffery said on : June 30th, 2010 at 9:30 am

    Solved the problem.

    Thank you :D


  50. Susan said on : July 17th, 2010 at 11:54 am

    Thanks so much! I have spent hours/days trying to find the remedy for this issue. I put the explorer.exe in the “processes” using the New Task (run) even though there was already one in there. Nothing happened right away, so I took my chances and deleted the old one that had been showing up in there all along. Immediately, I had my desktop return!


  51. Damian said on : July 18th, 2010 at 4:05 pm

    Thanks for the info. I have Vista, and this fix worked perfectly when my toolbar & start button disappeared and the right click mouse button wouldn’t work.

    Thanks again.


  52. sumanth said on : July 23rd, 2010 at 8:11 pm

    Thanks. It worked.


  53. Jay Ric said on : September 1st, 2010 at 8:25 pm

    thanks a lot, it fixed my problem.


  54. Alecs69 said on : September 5th, 2010 at 12:43 am

    It worked great, I got all my desktop icons back! yay!


  55. Gavin said on : September 5th, 2010 at 11:51 pm

    Phew! I let my kids play on my machine and this one totally freaked me out, almost did a system restore… Win XP Professional

    Thank-you! Right-click, Show Desktop Items did the trick..


  56. Shom Mukherjee said on : October 26th, 2010 at 5:23 am

    facing the worst nightmare given by my PC. no desktop icons! and I can’t get them back!


  57. Mike S. said on : October 26th, 2010 at 3:24 pm

    The author of this article says that if you can’t get the desktop icons, taskbar, and Start Button back by using the first two solutions you should try going to Start, run, typing CMD and then typing sfc /SCANNOW.

    How in the hell can you go to Start if it isn’t there? Nice job genius. You’re really brilliant.


  58. Someone said on : November 29th, 2010 at 8:20 am

    Dear Mike S.

    Instead of getting upset, you could ask nicely. Really man, it helps.

    Try holding down the windows key (looks like the windows flag logo) and then press the “r” key.

    Again that’s: *Windows Key* + R

    This is the shortcut for the Run command.

    Then type cmd, hit enter, and you will have the command prompt you need.

    Now try the “sfc /SCANNOW” command

    Have a nice day.


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