Desktop Icons Gone

Help!!! All of my desktop icons are gone form Vista. Only the sidebar is
visible. Right-clicking in the desktop has no result. Any corrective action
offered will bring lavish praise and eternal gratitude!

Rando

Rando wrote:

> Help!!! All of my desktop icons are gone form Vista. Only the sidebar is
> visible. Right-clicking in the desktop has no result. Any corrective
> action offered will bring lavish praise and eternal gratitude!
>
> Rando

Don't worry. Windows Explorer is out exploring in sub-Sahara Africa. I'm
sure your icons will turn up eventually. If unsuccessful, you can always
install Ubuntu. That's an African term for "icons never go missing".

Love and Kisses,
Doris

--
My Microsoft Hero (he loves this company!) ... http://tinyurl.com/yp9cn2
Title Says It All ... http://tinyurl.com/2ssodl

"Rando" <Rando@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:CB4DAAB8-E9B4-4E38-97BD-CCA1B611B968@microsoft.com...
> Help!!! All of my desktop icons are gone form Vista. Only the sidebar is
> visible. Right-clicking in the desktop has no result.

Absolutely nothing?
No menu at all?

"Rando" wrote
> Help!!! All of my desktop icons are gone form Vista. Only the sidebar is
> visible. Right-clicking in the desktop has no result. Any corrective
> action
> offered will bring lavish praise and eternal gratitude!

What icons are missing? System icons or also those you placed on the
desktop yourself? What's the history of this problem? When did this first
happen? Right after starting windows or while you were working in it? What
do you mean that "Right-clicking in the desktop has no result". Does
nothing appear? Normally after right clicking, click on Personalize, then
in the left pane click on Change desktop icons.

Have you tried a system restore to before the problem arose?

Making Good Newsgroup Posts
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm

--
Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]

Just the sidebar is visible and working. No icons, no menu, just a blank
screen. Nothing, zip, nada.

"Julian" wrote:

> "Rando" <Rando@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:CB4DAAB8-E9B4-4E38-97BD-CCA1B611B968@microsoft.com...
> > Help!!! All of my desktop icons are gone form Vista. Only the sidebar is
> > visible. Right-clicking in the desktop has no result.
>
> Absolutely nothing?
> No menu at all?
>

Well, if you Ctrl+Alt+Del, can you contact Task Manager? On the processes
tab, is explorer.exe running? If it is running, right-click on it, and
choose End Process. If it's not running, go to the Applications tab, choose
File from the menu, and click on New Task. Type explorer.exe in the Run
box, and press Enter.

"Rando" <Rando@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:7885F039-9BD2-42AF-928F-788E1A0CFF1D@microsoft.com...
> Just the sidebar is visible and working. No icons, no menu, just a blank
> screen. Nothing, zip, nada.
>
> "Julian" wrote:
>
>> "Rando" <Rando@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:CB4DAAB8-E9B4-4E38-97BD-CCA1B611B968@microsoft.com...
>> > Help!!! All of my desktop icons are gone form Vista. Only the sidebar
>> > is
>> > visible. Right-clicking in the desktop has no result.
>>
>> Absolutely nothing?
>> No menu at all?
>>

Rightclick on desktop
click on personalise
left hand side click on change desktop icons
tick your icon boxes


"Rock" <Rock@nospam.net> wrote in message
news:uFMcr8clHHA.3484@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> "Rando" wrote
>> Help!!! All of my desktop icons are gone form Vista. Only the sidebar
>> is
>> visible. Right-clicking in the desktop has no result. Any corrective
>> action
>> offered will bring lavish praise and eternal gratitude!
>
> What icons are missing? System icons or also those you placed on the
> desktop yourself? What's the history of this problem? When did this
> first happen? Right after starting windows or while you were working in
> it? What do you mean that "Right-clicking in the desktop has no result".
> Does nothing appear? Normally after right clicking, click on Personalize,
> then in the left pane click on Change desktop icons.
>
> Have you tried a system restore to before the problem arose?
>
> Making Good Newsgroup Posts
> http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
>
> --
> Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]

Guys, as I said, right-clicking on the desktop produces no result. Nothing
comes up when I right-click or left-click. Only the side-bar is visible and
functioning. The rest of the screen is completely blank.

Rando

"Norman" wrote:

> Rightclick on desktop
> click on personalise
> left hand side click on change desktop icons
> tick your icon boxes
>
>
> "Rock" <Rock@nospam.net> wrote in message
> news:uFMcr8clHHA.3484@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
> > "Rando" wrote
> >> Help!!! All of my desktop icons are gone form Vista. Only the sidebar
> >> is
> >> visible. Right-clicking in the desktop has no result. Any corrective
> >> action
> >> offered will bring lavish praise and eternal gratitude!
> >
> > What icons are missing? System icons or also those you placed on the
> > desktop yourself? What's the history of this problem? When did this
> > first happen? Right after starting windows or while you were working in
> > it? What do you mean that "Right-clicking in the desktop has no result".
> > Does nothing appear? Normally after right clicking, click on Personalize,
> > then in the left pane click on Change desktop icons.
> >
> > Have you tried a system restore to before the problem arose?
> >
> > Making Good Newsgroup Posts
> > http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
> >
> > --
> > Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]
>
>

Dean,

YOU DA MAN!!!!! I was able to bring up the Task Manager as you suggested.
Explorer was running and I closed it per your instructions. Still no icons
before or after a restart. I then restarted Explorer and the icons are now
back.

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!

Rando

"dean-dean" wrote:

> Well, if you Ctrl+Alt+Del, can you contact Task Manager? On the processes
> tab, is explorer.exe running? If it is running, right-click on it, and
> choose End Process. If it's not running, go to the Applications tab, choose
> File from the menu, and click on New Task. Type explorer.exe in the Run
> box, and press Enter.
>
> "Rando" <Rando@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:7885F039-9BD2-42AF-928F-788E1A0CFF1D@microsoft.com...
> > Just the sidebar is visible and working. No icons, no menu, just a blank
> > screen. Nothing, zip, nada.
> >
> > "Julian" wrote:
> >
> >> "Rando" <Rando@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> >> news:CB4DAAB8-E9B4-4E38-97BD-CCA1B611B968@microsoft.com...
> >> > Help!!! All of my desktop icons are gone form Vista. Only the sidebar
> >> > is
> >> > visible. Right-clicking in the desktop has no result.
> >>
> >> Absolutely nothing?
> >> No menu at all?
> >>
>
>

Interesting. Normally, if you end the explorer.exe process, it restarts
itself. I didn't think about the fact that a user Shell entry somewhere in
the registry might have a hairball (duh). Or maybe Explorer was trying to
take a nap, and not quite ready for prime time. I'm glad things are
working.

You may want to do this, to see if Explorer is feeling okay:

Right click on Command Prompt, and choose Run as Administrator. Copy the
following, and Paste it after the prompt.

sfc /SCANFILE=c:\windows\explorer.exe

Press Enter. If everything's okay, you'll get a positive, but cryptic, HAL
9000-like message from Windows Resource Protection. If you want to check
all your system files, and some pertinent registry keys, Copy and Paste
this:

sfc /SCANNOW

Press Enter. It may take a few minutes...

"Rando" <Rando@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:4BE0D47E-6036-404A-A516-902B0CAC6B77@microsoft.com...
> Dean,
>
> YOU DA MAN!!!!! I was able to bring up the Task Manager as you suggested.
> Explorer was running and I closed it per your instructions. Still no
> icons
> before or after a restart. I then restarted Explorer and the icons are
> now
> back.
>
> THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!
>
> Rando
>
> "dean-dean" wrote:
>
>> Well, if you Ctrl+Alt+Del, can you contact Task Manager? On the
>> processes
>> tab, is explorer.exe running? If it is running, right-click on it, and
>> choose End Process. If it's not running, go to the Applications tab,
>> choose
>> File from the menu, and click on New Task. Type explorer.exe in the Run
>> box, and press Enter.
>>
>> "Rando" <Rando@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:7885F039-9BD2-42AF-928F-788E1A0CFF1D@microsoft.com...
>> > Just the sidebar is visible and working. No icons, no menu, just a
>> > blank
>> > screen. Nothing, zip, nada.
>> >
>> > "Julian" wrote:
>> >
>> >> "Rando" <Rando@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> >> news:CB4DAAB8-E9B4-4E38-97BD-CCA1B611B968@microsoft.com...
>> >> > Help!!! All of my desktop icons are gone form Vista. Only the
>> >> > sidebar
>> >> > is
>> >> > visible. Right-clicking in the desktop has no result.
>> >>
>> >> Absolutely nothing?
>> >> No menu at all?
>> >>
>>
>>

>Rando wrote:
>
>> Help!!! All of my desktop icons are gone form Vista. Only the sidebar is
>> visible. Right-clicking in the desktop has no result. Any corrective
>> action offered will bring lavish praise and eternal gratitude!
>>
>> Rando

This often happens when one selects the "new" Vista view of the desktop
and not the Classic view. If you turn on the Classic view you should
see many (perhaps all) of the missing icons return.

[jakefarr]

Hey, I recently had this same issue and stumbled on this thread while trying to find a fix.

For me, restarting explorer didn't work, but i was able to right click on my desktop.

I added the base icons, but was still missing a lot of my stuff. I eventually found it in the recycling bin (seriously).

So yeah- here's to hoping i can convince my boss to go back to XP!