Showing or hiding icons on the desktop is pretty straightforward in Windows 10. You just need to right-click on the desktop, press " View"and then choose "Display Desktop Icons", to show / hide desktop shortcuts. Sometimes, you may not see shortcuts and other files on the desktop, even if the desktop is configured to display icons. If you have missing shortcuts from the Windows 10 desktop, then you can try several solutions below.
This method is suitable if, after disconnecting from the external monitor, the shortcuts on the desktop no longer appear. This option does nothing, but puts back the missing shortcuts that were previously out of the screen's field of view.
When your Windows device 10 is in tablet mode, you can't see your desktop shortcuts. Therefore, you need to disable tablet mode.
If the desktop shortcuts were visible a few days ago, then you can try restoring Windows 10 to an earlier date. Refer to my guide how.
If you can't live without desktop icons, you can create a new one account user. Refer to further tutorial how.
If a system error occurs that causes the desktop to disappear in Windows 10, you don't have to go straight to the professionals. Any user can easily cope with this problem.
There may be several reasons why the desktop is not displayed:
Restoring your desktop should start by turning off the power of your laptop or computer. This must be done not through the system, but directly using the power button on the system unit (external panel). Sometimes this is enough to fix it. If a new program was recently installed, after which the disappearance of the desktop was noticed, then it is necessary to remove it.
After that, you should perform a virus scan.
If, after the aforementioned manipulations, the desktop has not been displayed, then you should proceed to more serious actions.
The desktop on Windows 10 is a standard folder with graphical support. The construction of actions is carried out by the explorer.exe process. If it stops, then the desktop also stops functioning. You can restore its activity by opening explorer.exe through the task manager.
To get into the task manager, simultaneously hold down the Ctrl + Alt + Delete buttons. Typically, the call feature works by default unless you specifically disable it. In the window that appears, hover the cursor over the "File" tab and select the "New task" line in the expanded list of available actions. Now, in the proposed window, enter the required command - explorer.exe. After pressing the "Ok" button, we wait a few seconds (in some cases, it may take several minutes). Now you should see a screen with a desktop, on which all shortcuts, files, folders are open, work panel and the Start button. Despite its simplicity, it is quite effective method solving the problem. But it is not able to help if the process folder or the path to it has been damaged by some virus or system failure.
Damaged explorer.exe or registry problems are more difficult to fix. They will require a little knowledge of the Windows 10 recovery system.
To restore a damaged file, when you turn on the computer, you must, without waiting for the system to start, continuously press the F8 button until a menu appears, where you will be able to choose to boot an earlier successful configuration. For Win 10, 8 and 8.1, you need to enter "msconfig" in the search, open the application, find the "Downloads" tab and check the "Safe Mode" checkbox. When all actions are completed, uncheck the box, exit safe mode and restart your computer.
You can also try restoring the system to a working state. To do this, you will need a Task Manager again. As in the previous case, select the "File" tab in the menu, click on the "New task" item and enter "rstrui.exe". After that, the recovery system will work and access to the earlier saved points will be opened.
When you select a date, the application will roll back the values of all files to the state at that time.
You can achieve the same result with command line... To do this, again select the item "New task" in the manager and enter CMD. In the opened line of information input, which is a black screen in Windows 10, write "rstrui.exe".
The registry is the entire base of settings that are necessary for the system to work. Therefore, its damage could be the reason that the desktop disappeared in Windows 10. To exclude this possibility, you should check some indicators. Find the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SOFTWARE / Microsoft / WindowsNT / CurrentVersion / Winlogon key in the registry and look at its parameters. The Shell parameter line must contain the value for explorer.exe, and the Userinit parameter must be C: \ Windows \ system32 \ userinit.exe. If these parameters have different indicators, then they should be replaced with the correct values. Do not be alarmed if the black screen in Windows 10 freezes or blinks when changing indicators. This will go away in a few seconds.
The need for such manipulations can arise quite often. Therefore, the most reliable way to protect against making an error is to periodically save a copy of the registry on a third-party medium. Then, if a serious error occurs in the registry, you just need to import a previously saved copy instead of the damaged registry and Windows system 10 does not have to be manually configured.
If, after implementing all the described methods, your desktop still does not load, then you should contact a specialist.
It so happens that the icons are not displayed on the Windows 10 desktop, although the desktop itself is functioning normally. Various circumstances can lead to this:
If the desktop boots up normally, but there are no icons, then the first step is to check the use of tablet mode on the device. To do this, go to the "Notification Center". In the "All Settings" section, select "System". Among the options offered will be Tablet Mode. There are sliders with which you can toggle the stealth mode of icons and the taskbar. Disable both of them.
Now, even in tablet mode, icons will not be hidden.
If icons disappeared from the Windows 10 desktop during standard mode, then it is possible that the system simply does not show them. It's easy to check. When you click on the work area, some parameters open. You need to click on the item "View". Among the settings is the option "Show icons". We activate it and go to the desktop to make sure that now all programs, shortcuts and files are in place.
If you tried the first two ways to solve the problem, and the question of how to restore the shortcuts is still relevant, then you need to find out the third cause of the malfunction.
If the desktop works fine, but it is completely empty (that is, the icons have not easily disappeared from view, but they really do not exist), we can conclude that this is the fault of the system utility that maintains the device. One of its functions is to clean up damaged desktop shortcuts.
It automatically performs such a cleaning once a week, so if during this period, for any reason, the shortcuts were damaged, the utility will remove them.
To correct the situation, you must turn off the system maintenance. To get to it, you need to open working windows in the following sequence: "Control Panel" - "System and Security" - "Troubleshooting Tool". In the last window, select the "Settings" item. A tab will appear where you can turn off Windows Servicing Tool.
If the desktop boots, but generally does not work correctly (the image may freeze, the menu is not displayed, the shortcuts disappear, etc.), then it makes sense to check the system for malware software... To do this, run the antivirus installed on your PC, or use a third-party utility. When you start such a program, a window will appear with a list of found problems and a proposal to fix them. We confirm our agreement to carry out this operation and are waiting. The program will have to do everything automatically.
This can help bring icons back to the Windows 10 desktop.
After studying the information provided in detail, you will know why the desktop does not work and the shortcuts disappeared and how to put everything back in place.
The new Windows 10 operating system, in fact, like other versions of the OS, has not been spared the same problem - the desktop icons disappear for no reason.
Those. recently everything was fine, but after the next start of the computer, the graphical interface turned out to be empty. All folders, shortcuts, application icons disappeared, only the Start menu and the taskbar remained.
Below are the simplest actions that should be carried out in the first place in this situation.
The first step is to check if the display of desktop items is enabled. Click in an empty, free space of the graphical interface with the right mouse button, go to the "View" item and see if the box next to "Display desktop icons" is checked.
Also, you can try to click on the "Update" button or create a new folder, file and see if they will be displayed or not.
Another way is to make changes to the settings. Go to the next path Start - Settings - System. In the "Tablet Mode" section, try toggle both switches to the "On" position, and then "Off" again.
In most cases, these methods will help you restore your desktop icons.
Surely, many have noticed that with the arrival of new operating systems, namely, with Windows 8 and 10, after their installation, the icons so familiar to everyone disappeared: trash, computer, documents. More precisely, they did not disappear, but simply disappeared from users and moved to the Start menu, where they were displayed in the form of tiles. But, having found these shortcuts in the start-up, users had a new problem - they could not be returned to the desktop in any way. By calling the property of the shortcut, it could be pinned to the taskbar, but there was not a word about the desktop in the properties.
As a result, the question of how to return icons to the desktop and why they disappeared began to be asked by users more and more often. This is not surprising, since these icons position themselves as things that must be on the desktop. Here I am, always after or after, the first thing I do is return the icons for my documents, computer and trash can.
As I said earlier, the desktop icons have not disappeared anywhere, they just moved to the start, but this does not suit us, so let me show you how you can return the desktop icons to their place in Windows 8 and 10.
How to get desktop icons back in Windows 8
Well, we right-click on any place on the desktop, than we will call the context menu, in which we select “ Personalization».
Now, in the opened window of the desktop settings, on the right side, click on "".
The options will open, where in the area of desktop icons we remove or mark the name of those icons that should be displayed on the main screen. For example, for home computers, I check: Computer, Trash, User Files, and Control Panel. Having finished with the choice, click " Apply"And close the window by clicking on" OK».
That's all, now all the labels have returned to their rightful places.
How to get my computer icons and my documents back to Windows 10
Well, everything is clear with Windows 8, let's now deal with Windows 10. The principle of returning desktop icons is similar to the eight, but some menu items have been changed, so, just in case, I'll show you how to do this in the new system as well.
To begin with, we execute the same command as above, calling the context menu where we click on " Personalization».
In the parameters, go to the line “ Themes"And going to the first side, click on" ".
As you can see, no one deleted anything, just the developers hid these icons from the eyes of users, and left them only in the Start menu, which made it possible for ordinary users to choose which shortcuts should be displayed and which should be hidden.
These strings will be useful to those who for some reason does not work with "Personalization", for example, because of or for some other reason. In general, this setting can be done through the control panel, by going into which in the search bar we will write the word icons. The item "Personalization" should appear in the search results, by clicking on which you can restore everything as you need it.
Another alternative way is to execute one command, which will return the desktop icons to their usual place. So, calling the "Run" menu with the "Win + R" keyboard shortcut, copy and paste there, this command: Rundll32 shell32.dll, Control_RunDLL desk.cpl, 5 ... And we confirm the input by clicking on " OK».
Thus, everything will fall into place, if you still have questions, or have something to add, then leave comments and, as usual, I invite you to join us in
One of the problems that can arise with Windows 10 is the sudden disappearance of all icons from the desktop. This can happen at any time, including when installing an update and restarting your computer. It is interesting that the reason for this phenomenon is not yet precisely known, and so far developers and programmers only recommend several ways to solve it.
Simplest method for returning icons
The first and most logical way to solve the problem is to simply check the display of icons on the desktop in the parameters of the OS itself. This is done using the context menu. In its first paragraph, there should be a note next to the parameter about displaying desktop icons. If it is, then you need to remove and return this mark with the mouse, and then update the desktop using the F5 key or by selecting the corresponding item in the context menu.
Option number 2
Another way available to every user, regardless of skill, is to create a new shortcut on the desktop. This can be done by selecting the appropriate item in the context menu of the desktop. Most often, this is enough to solve the problem. If this did not happen, then the created object must be deleted.
Even users with extensive experience in using PCs often do not know all the possibilities that the Windows 10 menu provides.
Many users of other operating systems from Microsoft are likely already aware of this method of solving the problem and have tried it. This method is associated with a small probability of infecting Explorer with some types of viruses that were previously very widely used, but now most antivirus programs successfully block them.
This will lead to the launch of the Explorer program, for some reason (virus attack, etc.) it did not work as expected.
Violations in the work of "explorer.exe"
If suddenly a message pops up that the file is not found or the tool is not available, it's time to check the system with the latest antivirus and make sure the integrity of the file that is responsible for the Windows 10 window interface. We check the system disk and RAM for malware, then we execute the command "sfc / scannow" through the "Run" window or the Task Manager.
If a message appears about the absence or inaccessibility of the file, then you should, first of all, carry out a full system scan using antivirus. This is necessary in order to detect possible problems with a file that is responsible for the appearance of the desktop and displaying icons in Windows 10. After checking the RAM and hard drives for viruses, you should run the command "sfc / scannow" using the Order Manager or using the program entry window.
The general state of the file responsible for graphics and desktop display can be checked by entering the program:
To check only the state of the file responsible for the graphical shell, run:
sfc /scanfile=C:\Windows\explorer.exe
Additional ways to solve the problem (in case the above did not work):
You must first create an archive with the original program and close the Explorer.
