All my desktop icons disappeared from my Windows 7 desktop

Anonymous
2009-11-30T08:07:29+00:00

I created several icons on the desktops of 4 computers after clean installed the computers with Windows 7 Profession (either with 32 bit or 64 bit versions). After a few days, some of the desktop icons disappear. However, when I click on the Desktop toolbar at the bottom of the Windows desktop, the icons that disappeared from the desktop were still present and available in the Desktop toolbar listing. I saw many users have the similar problem on the Internet but no proper solution for the problem. Any suggestion for the fix.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Accessibility

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Anonymous
2010-03-26T16:06:25+00:00

There is an issue with an application called InfraRecorder, this is a CD\DVD recording software. When you install this software the Windows option to Show Desktop Icons is unselected. To Fix this just turn that option back on. To turn the option back on , do this:

  1. Right click the desktop
  2. Select View -> Show Desktop Icon
  3. Make sure the option is checked.

I hope this helps.

Kevin


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Anonymous
2010-02-21T11:51:42+00:00

Hi guys,

I found the cause of the misteriously disappearing Windows 7 desktop icons and the reason why Show desktop icons now and then gets unchecked.

It's INFRARECORDER !! Try for yourselves, when you start Infrarecorder and close it again, go have a look at "Show desktop icons", it is unchecked (but the icons are still  there). Check it on again and start Infrarecorder.... it is unchecked again.

This Windows 7 "bug" is irritating me since the beginning and now I found the cause: It's Infrarecorder which is causing this problem.

Test it and please let me know and spread the news :-)

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231 additional answers

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-04-16T23:00:25+00:00

    Are you using Windows 7?

    Did you switch on your computer since Sunday, prior to today?

    Did you previous use "shutdown" and therefore do a full startup today?

    Is it "shortcuts" that are missing, and not actual files?  Windows 7, that I know of, cleans up shortcuts on the desktop on Sunday, or next time computer is brought up, under certain conditions.  See my previous posts on this thread for details.  It is totally stupid of Microsoft to have done this in the first place, but when it was written, the writers probably weren't even Windows users.

    It sounds like you started an old, possibly prior version of Live Mail, or let's hope so.

    You should use start all programs, and see if you can find another one.

    To find documents, do you know what type document?

    Right click on start, and do a search for the documents, or look in Documents folder to see if they are there.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-04-15T09:10:42+00:00

    I switched my computer on this morning and only twelve icons were showing with the Live Mail, word and Google being among the missing.  No problem I thought because it had happened before and I switched of then on again and they all came back.

    I then tried to access a set of documents I was working on by clicking onto Start but there was no Documents title to click onto and when I keyed the title of one of the documents there was nothing.

    I then tried to access Live Mail by going into start and clicking onto Live Mail which did open and started to download over 1,000 old E-Mails starting with 2011 and going backwards.  

    I read about Infrarecorder on the previous answers but I don't even know if I have one.

    If these files are hidden could any kind soul tell me how to recover them.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-03-15T15:14:08+00:00

    That was very useful. Thank you very much.

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