Desktop Icons dissapear!

[Guest]

Help! On occasions, after I shut down a window or program or even the first
start up pop-up menu in Vista....all of a sudden all the icons dissapear!
All that is left is the background and the clock on the upper right hand
side. The pointing arrow is still there and you can move it, but there is
nothing to click on! You have to logoff and then log back on to get the
icons back. It has happened to both my wife and I (we log on under seperate
users). It does not happen all the time, but it does happen about 25% of the
time when we use our laptop (brand new Dell laptop).

 

[Keith Miller MVP]

Does the taskbar disappear as well? If so, that sounds like the shell
instance of Explorer crashing. If so, check your event logs for error
numbers,

 

[Guest]

Yes, even the taskbar disappears. Even when you hit the "windows" key on the
keyboard, nothing pops up. I'll check to see if there is anything in the
event log for error numbers.

Does the taskbar disappear as well? If so, that sounds like the shell
instance of Explorer crashing. If so, check your event logs for error
numbers,


--
Good Luck,

Keith
Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]

Help! On occasions, after I shut down a window or program or even the
first
start up pop-up menu in Vista....all of a sudden all the icons dissapear!
All that is left is the background and the clock on the upper right hand
side. The pointing arrow is still there and you can move it, but there is
nothing to click on! You have to logoff and then log back on to get the
icons back. It has happened to both my wife and I (we log on under
seperate
users). It does not happen all the time, but it does happen about 25% of
the
time when we use our laptop (brand new Dell laptop).

 

[Guest]

See if it is crashed in memory. As if chooses to crash, or Windows decides
to terminate it (cause it generated a fatal exceotion) then Windows will
restart Explorer. If it is 1/2 crashing this may explain why it doesn't
automatically restart.

Yes, even the taskbar disappears. Even when you hit the "windows" key on
the
keyboard, nothing pops up. I'll check to see if there is anything in the
event log for error numbers.

Does the taskbar disappear as well? If so, that sounds like the shell
instance of Explorer crashing. If so, check your event logs for error
numbers,


--
Good Luck,

Keith
Microsoft MVP [Windows XP Shell/User]

Help! On occasions, after I shut down a window or program or even the
first
start up pop-up menu in Vista....all of a sudden all the icons
dissapear!
All that is left is the background and the clock on the upper right
hand
side. The pointing arrow is still there and you can move it, but there
is
nothing to click on! You have to logoff and then log back on to get
the
icons back. It has happened to both my wife and I (we log on under
seperate
users). It does not happen all the time, but it does happen about 25%
of
the
time when we use our laptop (brand new Dell laptop).

 

[Guest]

Help! On occasions, after I shut down a window or program or even the first
start up pop-up menu in Vista....all of a sudden all the icons dissapear!
All that is left is the background and the clock on the upper right hand
side. The pointing arrow is still there and you can move it, but there is
nothing to click on! You have to logoff and then log back on to get the
icons back. It has happened to both my wife and I (we log on under seperate
users). It does not happen all the time, but it does happen about 25% of the
time when we use our laptop (brand new Dell laptop).

 

[Mark L. Ferguson]

Launch an elevated CMD window, ie Right click, Run as Administrator...
Shutdown Explorer Process from the Task Manager
In the CMD window go to C:\Users\<ProfileName>\AppData\Local
Do the following command: attrib -H IconCache.db
Do the following command: del IconCache.db
Do the following command: start explorer

This should rebuild the Icon Cache

<credit to oKean>
--
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Mark L. Ferguson

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