Something Happened

Have you scanned for malware or virus lately.

Try this video..
Fix Desktop Icons Keep Disappearing after Some time in Windows 11/10

 

If the tips in the video do not work, try the following. It's the proper way to clear the icon cache.




Cmd prompt as admin and run each cmd separately:

Code:

 ie4uinit.exe -show 

Code:

taskkill /IM explorer.exe /F 

(your desktop will go blank)

Code:

 DEL /A /Q "%localappdata%\IconCache.db" 

Code:

 DEL /A /F /Q "%localappdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\iconcache*"

Code:

shutdown /p

(your computer will immediately shut down)

 

Use shutdown /r instead.

shutdown /p shuts everything off instantly and can cause errors when you start back up.

If you had to do a system restore it sounds like a much deeper issue. An icon cache problem wouldn’t break Windows.

Next time, or even right now, try running sfc /scannow in PowerShell to see if it finds any issues.

If sfc finds issues (even if it repairs anything it finds) run this in PowerShell. DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

If that doesn't work System Restore would be my next step.

Edit: Important step.

Ctrl + Shift + Esc > Run new task > explorer.exe

That should get your desktop back and also enable the Start menu to run the repairs.

If you can't get the desktop back you can still launch PowerShell.

Ctrl + Shift + Esc > Run new task > powershell (maybe powershell.exe)