Missing desktop icons

[dyamond]

I removed all of the icons from my desktop because, well, I don't like looking at them. Today, I deleted something, that I thought was something else and now I'm curious to see what it was and if it's in the recycle bin. Problem is, I can't get to the recycle bin to show back up on my desktop.

I tried Control Panel>Personalization>Change desktop icons and I re-selected recycle bin, hit apply but it's still not showing up. How else can I get it back?


Fyi: I can't right click anything because my right click button on my touchpad is broken and so is my usb mouse (they hate me I swear ) so I need to be able to access anything without the need to right click.

Thanks guys!


Oh.. and it's Win7.

[thisisu]

Please download Microsoft Fix it 50210 to your desktop.

• Double-click it to run.
• Reboot when asked to.

[dyamond]

I got an error message "This Microsoft Fix does not apply to your operating system or application version"

Thanks anyway

[thisisu]

Oops, my mistake.

Let's try the manual way:

Copy the bold text below to Notepad. Save it as fixme.reg to your desktop. Be sure the "Save as" type is set to "All files" Once you have saved it double click it and allow it to merge with the registry.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Desktop\NameSpace\{645FF040-5081-101B-9F08-00AA002F954E}]
@="Recycle Bin"

If you got a "successfully merged into registry" type of message, reboot and see if you still have the same problem

[dyamond]

It successfully merged with the registry but after a reboot, I still don't have any icons.

[thisisu]

Originally Posted by dyamond

I still don't have any icons.

No icons at all, or just the Empty Recycle Bin icon?

[dyamond]

Originally Posted by thisisu

No icons at all, or just the Empty Recycle Bin icon?

No icons at all.

[plastidust]

This might work... Left click on the desktop, then press the Shift key + the F10 key. Hopefully that will bring up the right click context menu for the desktop. From there you should be able to use the arange icons options to show desktop icons. That works in XP, hoping it still works in 7.

[thisisu]

Originally Posted by plastidust

This might work... Left click on the desktop, then press the Shift key + the F10 key. Hopefully that will bring up the right click context menu for the desktop. From there you should be able to use the arange icons options to show desktop icons. That works in XP, hoping it still works in 7.

Works for me Nice one.

Found the registry key related to it too:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
"HideIcons"=dword:00000000

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Advanced]
"HideIcons"=-

Problem is, I can't get to the recycle bin to show back up on my desktop.

That's why I was thinking it was only the recycle bin.

[dyamond]

Originally Posted by plastidust

This might work... Left click on the desktop, then press the Shift key + the F10 key. Hopefully that will bring up the right click context menu for the desktop. From there you should be able to use the arange icons options to show desktop icons. That works in XP, hoping it still works in 7.

Neat trick! And it worked! Thank you both very much!!