Windows icons complete gone

This AM, I noticed my that laptop (running Windows 10) rebooted overnight. I presumed that Microsoft pushed its regular updates.

Upon logging into the system, I realized that all of my icons (both desktop and Windows Explorer) are missing. See attached screenshots.

Picture 1 -- depicts snapshot of section of my desktop

Picture 2 -- depicts section of Windows Explorer

Also, in the right pop-up pane, I noticed one notification indicating "catastrophic failure". "SYSTEM RESTORE" was disabled as well.

The laptop is less than 1 year old... do I really have to rebuild the entire system or is there may a known solution to this issue?

Thanks,
EEH

Windows OS

Last Comment

Ramin

8/22/2022 - Mon

Lee W, MVP

3/16/2017

When I first saw your question I was thinking Windows logged you in to a temporary profile... but seeing the pictures, that's not the case.

One suggestion based on a quick bit of internet research:

Try resetting the icon cache, as described here:
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/rebuild-icon-clear-thumbnail-cache-windows-10
(You will likely need to reboot or at least log out and back in before you know if it worked).

Another thing you can try:

Go to "Settings", "System", "Tablet Mode" and set both the Hide app icons on the taskbar in tablet mode and Automatically hide the taskbar in tablet mode to on.

Close settings and REPEAT but now set them to off.

Ramin

3/16/2017

Restore the computer using restore point. then Install update one by one to determine which one is the cause of problem.

ExpExchHelp

3/16/2017

ASKER

Lee W. -- ok... I'll give it a try.

Ramin -- as mentioned in my write-up, RESTORE is disabled (probably as part of the system failure)

Your help has saved me hundreds of hours of internet surfing.

fblack61

Ramin

3/16/2017

right clicked on the blank desktop > view > make sure Show Desktop Icons is checked.