Disappearance of all desktop icons

[Jim Hawkins]

When I turned on my PC (Win XP SP3) this morning all my desktop icons had
gone.
I can start programs by going to Start/All programs/.. finding the one I
want and clicking on it,
but that's a pain.
How do I get the icons back ? What caused them to disappear ?

Jim Hawkins

 

[Don Phillipson]

When I turned on my PC (Win XP SP3) this morning all my desktop icons had
gone.
I can start programs by going to Start/All programs/.. finding the one I
want and clicking on it,
but that's a pain.
How do I get the icons back ? What caused them to disappear ?

Omitted here are:
1. your AV and malware practice. (This effect may be malware.)
2. whether you have System Restore configured. This allows us
to reboot with the registry (hive) known good on a prior date. This
is often the fastest way to recover from an unwanted surprise.

 

[Jim Hawkins]

Thanks Don,

AV is Norton 360. Scan shows nothing nasty.
Browser is IE6. I don't know anything about System Restore.

Jim Hawkins

 

[VanguardLH]

When I turned on my PC (Win XP SP3) this morning all my desktop icons had
gone. I can start programs by going to Start/All programs/.. finding the
one I want and clicking on it, but that's a pain. How do I get the icons
back ? What caused them to disappear ?

Right-click on the desktop. Under Arrange, check if Show Desktop Icons is
enabled or not.

As to what caused them to disappear, that could be malware, security
software, tweaking programs, or the user (especially if the computer is not
physically secured and/or you aren't the only one allowed on the computer).

 

[Jose]

When I turned on my PC (Win XP SP3) this morning all my desktop icons had
gone.
I can start programs by going to Start/All programs/.. finding the one I
want and clicking on it,
but that's a pain.
How do I get the icons back ?  What caused them to disappear ?

Jim Hawkins

Right click an open area of your Desktop, Arrange Icons By... Show
Desktop Icons needs to be checked.

If you did not change it on purpose or by accident, perhaps something
changed it to annoy you.

Perform some scans for malicious software, then fix any remaining
issues:

Download, install, update and do a full scan with these free malware
detection programs:

Malwarebytes (MBAM): http://malwarebytes.org/
SUPERAntiSpyware: (SAS): http://www.superantispyware.com/

They can be uninstalled later if desired.

 

[Twayne]

In

When I turned on my PC (Win XP SP3) this morning all my
desktop icons had gone.
I can start programs by going to Start/All programs/..
finding the one I want and clicking on it,
but that's a pain.
How do I get the icons back ? What caused them to
disappear ?
Jim Hawkins

I assume you did do a Restart, right? And the problem persisted?
Anything else I can think of has already been covered. After the REstart I'd
look at whether the desktop icons are set to be shown, and then move on to
malware.
The only thing I can think of not covered so far is to rebuild the icon
cache, which I can't recall how to do; perhaps someone might be able to give
the details?

HTH,

Twayne`

 

[Jose]

In

I assume you did do a Restart, right? And the problem persisted?
Anything else I can think of has already been covered. After the REstart I'd
look at whether the desktop icons are set to be shown, and then move on to
malware.
   The only thing I can think of not covered so far is to rebuild theicon
cache, which I can't recall how to do; perhaps someone might be able to give
the details?

HTH,

Twayne`

If you are talking about the iconcache.db file, you can read about
ways to rebuild it, refresh it, repair it, etc. but I am of the
thinking that if you think in any way this is your problem, make a new
one with 100% certainty and remove any question about it.

Locate the one for your user, or locate the all with Windows search.
Mine is here:

C:\Documents and Settings\Jose\Local Settings\Application Data

Delete the iconcache.db file, reboot and log back in (or login
automatically) and a new iconcache.db file will be created. Delete
them for all users - delete every one you find if you feel like it and
there will be no questions.

This method removes any doubt that it was recreated, there are no
questions about did the rebuild work, do I need to reboot, etc. Just
do it all and there will be zero questions about it.

 

[Jim Hawkins]

When I turned on my PC (Win XP SP3) this morning all my desktop icons
had gone.
I can start programs by going to Start/All programs/.. finding the
one I want and clicking on it,
but that's a pain.
How do I get the icons back ? What caused them to disappear ?

Jim Hawkins

My sincere thanks to Don, Twayne and Jose !
It was simply that 'Show desktop icons' flag that had somehow got turned
off.

Jim Hawkins