Last Updated on June 27, 2023 by Rick Darlinton
The error of desktop icons not showing in windows 10/11 may occur due to various reasons. Sometimes, you may just make some changes on your computer that could lead to this issue. If you are also encountering the windows 10 desktop not showing problem, do not worry as you will explore some efficient solutions in this article. Now let’s get started and try some tips below to fix desktop icons not showing in windows
1. Enable Show desktop icons option
The simplest way to fix the issue is just enable Show desktop icons option on your desktop. It is very easy to operate: just right-click on your desktop and then tap on View. After that, you could enable the option of Show desktop icons.
2. Relaunch Windows Explorer
When you find the windows 10 desktop icons now showing issue exits, it is also advisable to relaunch the windows explorer using the solutions below
- Press Ctrl+shift+esc to open the task manager
- Next, tap on the File menu and then select Run new task in windows 10.
- Enter the explorer in the box and then press Ok to relaunch the windows explorer to fix the desktop icons missing issue.
3. Run Regedit
You can also try this following solution that is proven to help some users fix the desktop icons not showing issue in windows 10 or 11.
- Press windows +R and then enter the regedit. Press enter key to enter the next process
- Find the Hkey_current_user and then go to software>microsoft>windows>currentversion>explorer
- Now you can compare your computer with others that work well and find the additional 2 items under the explorer. Just remove these additional 2 items under the explorer file . For example, it may be nodesktop and forceactivede… . but please back up these files on your computer in case you remove something by accident.
4. Rebuild windows icon cache
Another solution you can try to fix windows 10 desktop icons not showing is rebuild windows icon cache. You can try to do using the command line below
- Press windows +R key to open the command box and then enter cmd to go to command prompt.
- Type the following code
taskkill /F /IM explorer.exe
cd /d %userprofile%\AppData\Local
attrib –h IconCache.db
del IconCache.db
start explorer.exe
- Now restart your computer.
5. Go to desktop icon settings
To fix the issue of windows 10 desktop icons not showing, you can also select the icons you want to show in desktop icon settings.
- First off, please right-click on your computer desktop
- Now navigate to Personalize>themes> desktop icon settings
- Choose the icons you need to show on desktop such as recycle bin, computer, network, user’s files and more.
- Next , click on Ok to check whether the issue of windows 10 desktop icons not showing is fixed.
6. System restore
Performing system restore is also possible to fix the issue of desktop icons missing issue in windows 10 or 11.
- First off, click on Start menu icon on your windows and then enter control panel in the box
- Now please go to recovery>open system restore> next
- Here, you could select the related restore pints and then select next>finish to perform system restore
So these are some solutions that can be applied to help fix windows desktop icons not showing issue. You can try some of them and check whether your problem can be fixed.
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