Icons are missing from Desktop, Taskbar, and Explorer

[Sakdichote Totiam]

It's been a few days now since icons aren't showing everywhere including Desktop (really bugs me, this one), Taskbar (Not actually disappeared, but deformed), and File Explorer. I did things like calling Task Manager up and end the process of explorer.exe and run it again?no luck. I restarted Windows?yielded no results. I also tried turning the machine off and on again?to no avail. Does anyone else have a solution for this? Please help! Anything would be appreciated, thank you in advance!

Here are some screenshots regarding the problem I am facing.





While Desktop and Explorer are not working as well as they should, Start Menu and Tablet Mode appear to be quite fine by themselves.




My machine is running Windows 10 Home Edition, not Insider Preview. I don't know how to find the version/build numbers, but I'm positive it's the latest build available since I just checked Windows Update. Thanks again!

 

[Sakdichote Totiam]

Guess I'll have to reinstall Windows then.

 

[_Emi_]

I got that, and I had to clean install Windows 10. but it was from an upgrade so maybe something changed something and that's why it happened. so yeah, I think clean installing is the best thing you could do. because nothing I did worked.

 

[Sakdichote Totiam]

So I take it that it wasn't me messing around the system files, well I actually didn't, but it was a glitch from an update. Now I know the answer to a question I've been meaning to ask: I'm not alone, somebody else had it, too. Thank you, for your time and your generous reply—though, didn't solve the problem but gave me a peace of mind nevertheless. Again, thank you, _Emi_!

 

[_Emi_]

Nah, it wasn't you. actually it was my dad's laptop, so he really doesn't do anything but work on Excel and watches tutorials and try to learn more from YouTube and all. sometimes he does some taxes stuff and such for people. but he doesn't install anything on it. and one day he said it was behaving like that, and I tried to fix it and it didn't work.
But I tried everything from restore points, to just anything sfc and all that. but nothing worked and it was easier and faster just to install his Windows 10 since he doesn't use many software. than wait for something to work.

it sucks but who knows what causes this, it seems not many got it but maybe it's just a windows update that brought a bug or something. but now that is clean installed everything runs better and with less problems and I am sure these disappearing bug won't happen again... or I hope. I blame upgrades so I always try to clean install everything I use, even my Windows Phone I reset it.

anyway it sucks I couldn't help, I wish I fixed my dad's laptop so I would have given you a way of fixing this, but have a good day and hope your computer doesn't give this kind of problem again.

 

[Lee B]

I ran into a different version of a similar problem. After upgrading from 8.1 Pro to 10 Pro, I had icons where you didn?t, but I didn?t have them where you apparently did ? on the tiles of the start screen. And I also had random crashes.

Maybe I wouldn?t have these problems if I did a clean install instead of an upgrade, but that would take a lot more time and effort to get all the apps and settings back where they should be. I decided to revert to 8.1, which is continuing to run just fine. I?m waiting to see if user experience with the October update to Win10 suggests that some of the bugs have been swatted.

 

[_Emi_]

So I got yesterday this issue on my clean installed Windows. I know, I have been messing alot my computer. but not in a way that would break it like this.
this issue appeared when I accidentally pressed the shutdown button so Windows started to shutdown, (I only wanted to turn the screens off, so I was distracted and didn't think what I was doing), when I turned it on, it was like this. but I was downloading stuff, so I didn't want to fix it right away.

anyway!

Today I fixed it, and it was easy. so my update to this thread is simple.

Just grab your Windows 10 installation and do an upgrade of Windows 10 over Windows 10 and that will clean whatever caused that and fix it perfectly fine (or that's what I think haha).

By doing in place upgrade, means nobody will lose any setting or software and everything will work fine within 2 hours. So, instead of clean installing and reinstall everything again that will take many hours, an in-place upgrade sounds easier and faster since nobody has to do anything but give some clicks at the beginning and once it's over searching for updates and what you want to keep and such... after all that, once it restarts, everthing goes smootly and since it's Windows 10 over Windows 10, compatibility and everything should work fine

so this is a better solution to what I said last month :smile: if anyone gets this issue or the OP.