Ever since I have had XP I have been plaged will this problem. From time to time when I click on Control Panel or I am in Windows Explorer all the Desktop Icons will disappear and then about 3 seconds later come back only some of the icons in the system tray done comeback. I would explect that a company the size of microsoft would have been able to fit this by now. This is really starting to (&^%&^$&^%#$ me off. I think one of these days I will have to have a look at Linux as Microsoft is just plain unreliable.

Navigator1, Start your computer in SAFE mode then restart it in Normal mode. This will rebuild the Iconcache.db file. You may also want to go to the link below line 121 left column and download & run the Increase Icon Cache file which is a .vbs file. Save it to your hard drive (you may want to right click and use Save Target As). Double click the vbs file. You will be prompted when the script is done. "NOTE: If your anti-virus software warns you of a "malicious" script, this is normal if you have "Script Safe" or similar technology enabled. These scripts are not malicious, but they do make changes to the System Registry". Increase Icon Cache Tufenuf

I did what you said but still have problem. I discovered that the video drivers were not installed, the mind boggles because they were once. Installing the video drivers has helped but not fixed the problem. A clue is that is that it now only has the problem when I first boot and then open Windows Explorer and then open Control Panel, all the icons on the desktop disappear for about 3 seconds and reappear. At the same time the icons in the System Tray disappear and then reappear but the Adaware icon and Video card icon dont return. When I try this in Safe Mode the screen goes blank and I am presented with the dialogue box telling me Windows is running in Safe mode. his happens every time I click on Control Panel with Windows Explorer open.