Taskbar problems

[Littleskamper]

I recently bought a used Asus laptop with Vista. First of all, I am not great on computers and this is my first Vista experience ever so I am way behind the curve.
For a couple of weeks now, all my icons would disappear upon start up. I have done many searches on the internet to find a solution. I have done the control, alt, delete explorer thing and have also tried to correct it with the right click desktop icons thing. The icons will come back but then when I restart it, they disappear again. I have installed a new virus protection program called Avast. When I ran it this morning, it turned up clean.

Honestly, I am starting to wonder if I have just simply clicked the wrong button somewhere and caused this. I am starting to regret getting Vista but am hoping if I can get this fixed, maybe I will be excited about it again. Can anyone offer any suggestions on this?
Thank you!

[Ekpah]

First let me that your Antivirus program is updated with the latest virus definition or not. If not then first install the latest update and then run the Antivirus program in Safe Mode with Networking which is the best way for removal of virus as they are less active in safe mode. If you are able to get the task manager by pressing CTRL+ALT+DEL then click on new task and type explorer.exe and check whether this helps for desktop icon or not.

[Anna2010]

I am not sure but virus cannot be the only cause for your problem there maybe some other issue.