Comments on: Desktop icons missing or disappeared

By: Dinesh

Dinesh — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:10:12 +0000

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

By: john

john — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:55:54 +0000

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.

By: tabreize

tabreize — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 20:44:02 +0000

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?

By: Bo

Bo — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 17:10:46 +0000

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…

By: Fred

Fred — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 15:08:17 +0000

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.

By: Gary

Gary — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 12:51:13 +0000

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.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 20:57:38 +0000

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

Thanks again!

By: shigin

shigin — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:13:12 +0000

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?

By: tricia

tricia — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 05:33:35 +0000

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!

By: Anon

Anon — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 03:34:47 +0000

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

By: Amina

Amina — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 12:35:57 +0000

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!

By: Diding

Diding — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 04:04:31 +0000

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

By: Jill

Jill — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:40:56 +0000

Thanks – much more helpful than the Windows website.

By: Kate

Kate — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 17:07:30 +0000

Thank you so much! Worked like a charm.

By: tony

tony — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 05:05:34 +0000

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