Icons are the little pictures that are used to represent files, folders and applications on personal computers. In windows XP and Vista, the user can decide whether or not they want to display icons on the desktop, which is the main computer screen when no applications are open. My desktop which is shown below does not display icons. I use a picture I took of the groundhog that lives in my back yard as my wallpaper.

However, most people have icons for all of the application they use regularly displayed on their desktop. The picture below shows some of my icons when they are displayed on the desktop.

Corrupted Icon Cache Windows XP

Windows XP caches all of the icons for all of the items on your desktop so that it doesn’t have to open each folder and extract the icon each time you reboot the computer. As a result, the icon cache can become corrupted, transparent or extremely small.

To fix the problem, you need to refresh the icon cache.

• Go to Start -> Run and enter regedit to launch the Registry Editor.
• Navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer key.
• In the right-hand pane, find or create the DWORD value and set it equal to MaxCachedIcons. Always use the exact phrase and capitalization when entering information in the registry.
• To enlarge the cache size, double-click on this value and change it to 4096 in decimal. If the problem recurs, try an even larger value.
• Next, Right-click on the desktop, choose Properties, click on the Appearance tab
• Click on the Advanced button
• Select Icon in the Item list and increase the Size setting by 1 pixel (this will normally be from 32 to 33) as shown below

 

• Click OK
• Then click on the Apply button. The desktop will fade and then return back to normal.
• Now click on the Advanced button again, change the icon size back to what it was, click on OK, and click on OK again. This forces windows to recreate the cache.

Dark Background Problem Windows XP

Sometimes desktop icons are outlined with a solid color as shown in the picture on the left below. To remove the color behind the captions:

• Right click anywhere on the desktop
• Select Arrange Icons by
• Uncheck Lock Web Items on Desktop as shown in the middle picture below
• The icons will appear without the background as show in the last picture on the right below.

Restoring Desktop Icons Windows Vista

Use the following steps on windows Vista machines to restore desktop icons:

• right-click on the desktop and select the Personalize command as shown below

 

• The Personalization folder from the Control Panel will open.
• Select the Change Desktop Icons command in the Tasks section in the upper left corner of the folder window circled in red below

 

• The Desktop Icon Settings dialog box shown below will open
• Restore the Computer, Documents, and Network icons simply by selecting the appropriate check boxes. You can also add the Control Panel to the desktop.

 

• To get the Internet Explorer icon back on the desktop, you have to edit the registry.
• Click the Start button
• Type Regedit in the Start Search box.
• Press Enter
• When the Registry Editor appears, navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\
  CurrentVersion\Explorer\HidedesktopIcons\NewStartPanel
• Click anywhere inside the NewStartPanel folder.
• Pull down the Edit menu and select the New -> DWORD (32-bit) Value command as shown below

• When the new value dialog box appears, type in the following code, including the brackets: {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}
• Press Enter twice.
• When you see the Edit DWORD (32-bit) Value dialog box, type 0 in the Value Data text box as shown below

• To complete the operation, click OK and close the Registry Editor. In a few moments, you’ll see an Internet Explorer icon on your desktop.

Saving Desktop Icons

Most people like to arrange the icons on their desktop in a manner that makes sense to them. Sometimes when you least expect it the operating system will rearrange the icons without you telling it to do so. This usually happens when you change one of the desktop properties such as screen resolution, changed the wallpaper or did something else. This is another one of those annoying habits that windows has that drives users crazy.

Windows does not have a built in option to save and restore your current desktop layout, unless the entire active desktop crashes. However, there are several applications like desktop restore that will work with all versions of windows that allows you to save the current layout to a file which can later be restored. Most of these programs are free.