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All of the icons on my desktop disappeared! All I have is my background color. I can't find any help in the help files. I have a Desktop folder and if I open it I can click on the links and everything works. What can I do to resore my icons? Other than that, everything seems to be working as well as can be expected.
Some simple questions here, but since you are not very specific, they need to be asked. Did you reboot? What happens if you right click the desktop and click on refresh or on arrange icons? What was the last thing you did to your computer just before this happened?
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Sometimes simply changing your screen resoultion to a different setting and then changing back will remedey weird problems like "missing icons"
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Thanks for the help all.
I tried the Tweak route but that's for icons that are wrong for the application. Yes, I have rebooted several times but no joy. Right clicking the desktop and 'arrange by' has nothing but a grayed out selection group. Resolution doesn't matter, either.
I suspect there's a switch SOMEWHERE that controls such things but I don't know where it is. I'm not a geek but I am fairly confuser literate and I didn't knowingly change a setting I didn't have any business messing with. I reinstalled XP but about all that accomplished is deleting all of my 'restore to' dates so they're gone.
Aaaarrrrgggghhhhh!
Any help would be appreciated.
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Hi,
If you go to display properties by right clicking on the desktop and selecting properties, then select the desktop tab and press the Customize Desktop button, you should see an option there called Desktop cleanup. If that option is selected then that may have been responsible for removing your icons. How you get them back is another matter. It says that they are moved to a folder so you might have to look around in explorer to find them, perhaps under your profile in Documents and Settings might be the first place to look, otherwise do a search for the name of one of the icons.
Steve.
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Still no luck. Right clicking the desktop doesn't give me any options I can use. There is an unused icons folder but, again, I don't know how to get them back on top. I even tried to add a shortcut and nothing appears. All of this is going into some folder but I just can't link the folder(s) to my desktop.
I think I'm going to cry. Why in he*l does MS make it so complicated to make it so easy for us to use. I remember back in Win 95 you could modify the 'register' very easily. Now I understand that the registry is spread out over several 'hives' rather in one spot. Does Lunix work any better???
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i just got over this exact problem it took two weeks to fix .did you turn off your computer when you had too many popups comming up in explorer when in the cracks am website? this happend to me and i lost all my restore points try starting up in safe mode see how you go also play around with right clicking the desktop icon pick toolbars then show desktop dont reinstall or play around with any complicated stuff the answer is there in front of you there somewere also do you have realone player installed ?it stuffs your system restore and you dont know till you really need it if you have get rid of it . have a good look at your event viewer for clues. good luck
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Andy,
I am glad you have found an 'unused icons' folder. Proceed as follows to restore the icons to the desktop:1) Highlight the icons in the 'unused icons' folder
2) Select cut from the edit menu (or right click on any of the files and select cut from the menu, or even press Ctrl X)
3) Minimize all windows so that the desktop is showing
4) Right click on the desktop and select paste. Your icons should appear.
The desktop is just like any other folder, ie. you can store regular files on it, though in my opinion it is best just to store shortcuts there. You can find the desktop folder in 'Documents and Settings/All Users/Desktop', or have customised desktops for individual users in 'Documents and Settings/**Your Login Name**/Desktop.
Steve.
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