Everything's gone from my desktop!

darkowl72 said:I doubt even a system restore would fix this mess...

I disagree. It might actually work. I don't think we're looking at malware here; it looks like a total system meltdown.

Paul Collins2 said:I'm having a massive issue; everything has vanished from my desktop
even the desktop itself is gone
all the icons in the Start menu are just white boxes

file transfers aren't working either (tried it with some photos)
and this is the error I get

please, does anyone know what's going on here? Has anyone dealt with something like this before? 🙄

Regards,

Can you still launch programs from the taskbar? If so, you might want to try deleting the iconcache.db file and then restarting explorer.exe.

He already took care of that using Disk Cleanup. (That’s the right name, isn't it?)

rowdybadger18 said:He already took care of that using Disk Cleanup. (That's what it's called, right?)

I don't think so.🙂

You’ve got it wrong.

Thanks for all the advice, everyone. It’s clear the system definitely needs a complete overhaul 🙂

Your best bet is to head over to the Control Panel, open up System Restore, and roll the whole Windows system back to how it was just a day before all those icons stopped working.☺☕