Windows 7: All Control Panels Icon on Desktop

Computer is an Acer Aspire 5720Z running Windows 7 SP1 (with all current updates). Somehow I have ended up with an "All Control Panel Items" icon on my desktop that I can't get rid of. I went in to the Desktop Icons panel and verified that "Control Panel" and "Allow themes to change desktop icons" were both unchecked. They are. So I checked both, applied (at which point ANOTHER All Control Panel Items" icon appeared on my desktop for a total of 2 of them), then unchecked both and applied (and the duplicate disappeared) - still leaving one on the desktop. I also have tried switching themes, and no mater what is selected, the control panel icon remains. I found a MS article on it and also ran a virus scan on the system with Avira AV Premium 2012 as well as SuperAntiSpyware (system is clean).

Any ideas on how to get rid of it? It is functional and takes me to the "classic view" of control panels.

Hello Downindm, and welcome to Seven Forums.

You might see if using the REG file from step 15 in OPTION TWO in the tutorial below may be able to remove the Control Panel icon for you afterwards.

Desktop Icons - Add or Remove

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Yes, I had tried that as well (the one for all users) - applied and restarted, and no change.

In that case, you might see if using the free program Unlocker on it may be able to delete it.

Downloaded and installed "Unlocker". It brought up a dialogue to choose a location... I went to the user folder > desktop and it brought up 2 explorer.exe processes (with different ids). Is this normal or should I choose something else? Never used this before and it's not exactly self explanatory.

I checked the task manager and only see one instance of explorer.exe running in the process list.

After installing Unlocker, you should be able to right click on the Control Panel shortcut, click on Unlocker, click on Yes for UAC if prompted, select Delete, and click on OK to delete it.

That works for other icons on my desktop, however when right clicking on the control panels icon, the only options I get are "Open" and "Create Shortcut" - nothing else. I'm no windows expert, but I am wondering, is it possible I have a duplicate entry in the registry somewhere (I'd have no idea where to look though)?

You could use the Find and Find Next feature in regedit to search for all {5399E694-6CE5-4D6C-8FCE-1D8870FDCBA0} entries.

If {5399E694-6CE5-4D6C-8FCE-1D8870FDCBA0} is found in the left pane of regedit, then ignore it and use "Find Next" to continue searching.

If {5399E694-6CE5-4D6C-8FCE-1D8870FDCBA0} is found in the right pane of regedit, then make sure it's "Data" value is set to 1 instead of 0.

All entries found in the right pane of regedit were already set to "1" as they should be.

Hmm, well I'm about stumped. You could try doing a system restore using a restore point (if available) dated before this shortcut appeared on your desktop to hopefully remove it.