Disappearing desktop icons in Win 7

[BewilderedBob]

HELP !! For some unknown reason all desktop icons fail to appear during boot. I can logon as usual but only a "blank" desktop appears. Even safe mode fails to show icons. As far as i know there were no significant changes made that would cause this issue. The individual shortcuts are still avail but fail to appear on desktop. What is going on ??

Bewildered Bob

ps: for what it's worth Mozilla Firefox is browser but the failure seems to appear prior to OS load.

- - - Updated - - -

UPDATE: disregard "p.s." abt Firefox browser- obviously the OS has loaded when desktop appears. But icons are not shown.

 

[Megahertz07]

What you see on the desktop is a combination of two desktops. See if the shortcuts are in them
- All users - C:\Users\Public\Desktop
- Current user - C:\Users"Name"\Desktop

If you hit Start, does the user name appear on top right corner?

 

[BewilderedBob]

Clicking on "start" button

When "start" button is clicked TWO desktops appear (a smaller one within the full size). My user name appears at upper-right of smaller (dropdown menu ??) one. The shortcuts apparently are still stored somewhere but fail to appear as icons on larger (normal) desktop. What am i doing wrong ?

Bewildered Bob

 

[MisterEd]

Use Windows Explorer to navigate to your desktop folder. What do you see there?

Note first navigate to C:\User folder. Click on your user name folder. Finally, click on the Desktop folder



For example, for my user MisterEd I navigate to the folder C:\ > Users > MisterEd > Desktop



Compare that to what my actual desktop looks like.



Note, normally there might also be something in C:\ > Users > Public > Desktop but my computer doesn't have that folder.

 

[BewilderedBob]

Mr Ed: the contents of "desktop" include mostly file fldrs along with some shortcuts and also "desktop.ini". These contents seem to be correct but how can they be displayed as icons ??

Bewildered Bob

 

[MisterEd]

Mr Ed: the contents of "desktop" include mostly file fldrs along with some shortcuts and also "desktop.ini". These contents seem to be correct but how can they be displayed as icons ??

Bewildered Bob

The Computer, Network, and Control Panel icons are things that I have added to the desktop. Note they do not show up in my desktop folder like the shortcuts do.

What in particular are you missing on your desktop?

I remember years ago my desktop was empty after I logged in. I found out that my profile had become corrupted so Windows gave me a new profile folder including a new desktop folder that had nothing in it. Its possible I logged into another Admin account and found the old profile and restored it. Unfortunately, I don't remember how I fixed that.

 

[BewilderedBob]

What in particular are you missing on your desktop?

There are NO ICONS on the desktop but apparently the shortcuts are still visible in a file somewhere.

Bewildered Bob

 

[torchwood]

please post the screenshots as requested by MrE in post #4

 

[BewilderedBob]

Plz explain

Hello Torchwood: before I publish personal data for all to see, it is essential to understand WHY the contents must be made public merely to determine cause of failure to display icons correctly. Is Mr Ed looking for something specific ? If so, WHAT ??

Thanx.
Bewildered Bob

ps: i am a retired IBM Systems Engineer with over 50 yrs of IT experience and also VERY CAUTIOUS.

 

[MisterEd]

I just want to see screenshots like I posted. I would like to see:

• Contents of the Users folder
• Contents of the Users"YourUser"\desktop folder
• Screenshot of your desktop

It's up to you if you want to post them or not.

Here is another thing to try.

1. Create a new user
2. Log into the user
3. Add some items to the desktop
4. Log out
5. Log back in to see if the desktop is the same or not

 

[BewilderedBob]

Interesting !!

You wrote - "

The "plain vanilla" icons appear for the new user but not the many fldrs which are associated with my original user id. Hope that helps.

Still Bewildered Bob