Desktop Icons Missing or Disappeared – Windows Shows Blank?

Were you working on something and all of a sudden you find your desktop icons and the Start button taskbar disappeared from your desktop? This can happen quite frequently especially when you have bad software installed or your computer has been infected by virus.

It’s pretty annoying because usually when this happens to you, the start button and the taskbar are gone too. All you can see is just your desktop wallpaper and that leaves you with nothing much to click on. This is what commonly known as a blank desktop.

This problem can be caused by 2 possible reasons.

• crashed explorer.exe which handles the desktop startup process,
• your desktop icons are simply hidden.

The below solutions can be applied to Windows 7, Vista and XP.

Fix 1: Restart your computer - Blank Desktop Icons Missing or Disappeared

The first thing you should try is to restart your computer. If windows opens as usual without any problem, you can continue your work. If you’re still worrying that it will happen again next time, read Fix 4.

Fix 2: Enable ‘Show Desktop Icons’ - Blank Desktop Icons Missing or Disappeared

If only your desktop icons disappeared (but taskbar is still there on your screen), it probably means your desktop icons are simply hidden. To re-display your desktop icons, first, right-click anywhere on the desktop and then choose View (In Windows XP -> choose Arrange Icons By). Next check the Show Desktop Icons item.

Fix 3: Re-launch explorer.exe - Blank Desktop Icons Missing or Disappeared

If everything’s gone and the only thing that’s left to look at is your desktop wallpaper, you can re-launch your desktop. To do so, hold CTRL + ALT + press DEL, and then select Task Manager. From there, go to Applications tab and then click New Task. Type explorer.exe into the open field and then press OK. Your desktop icons and start menu taskbar should show up again. If not, read Fix 4.

Fix 4: Replace explorer.exe - Blank Desktop Icons Missing or Disappeared

If Windows shows you that the explorer.exe is either crashed or missing when you try to launch it, you’ll have to replace the explorer.exe with a new one. Here’s how:

1. Copy explorer.exe from other clean computer which has the same version of Microsoft Windows as yours (from C:\WINDOWS), save it into your pendrive or other storage medium.
2. In your computer, follow the Fix 3 steps until you clicked New Task, in the open field, type your pendrive directory (e.g. E:/), or simply click Browse to locate your pendrive.
3. Select the new explorer.exe then press CTRL + C to copy.
4. Click New Task again, type C:\Windows in the open field, and then hit OK.
5. Explorer.exe is hidden by default. Show hidden files from (Tools – Folder Options – View – Show hidden files and folders)
6. Delete the existing explorer.exe.
7. Paste the new explorer.exe.
8. Reboot your PC and the problem should be gone now.