Computer users store on the desktop (desktop) Windows those icons, folders and shortcuts that are used every day, and should always be at hand. The disappearance of all or only part of them may be the result of exposure to a virus or other malicious program. Another option is unqualified user actions. These two reasons are fundamental, explaining why all shortcuts disappeared from the desktop. Fortunately, the task of how to restore shortcuts on the desktop, is within the power of the user with basic computer knowledge.

Lack of shortcuts delivers inconvenience to the user. You can restore the missing labels yourself.

Configuring system icons

After installing Windows 7 on the PC desktop, the “Trash” system icon is already present. During the initial configuration, as a rule, several others are added to it. Almost always, this is the “Computer” icon (in previous versions - “My Computer”), the folder with the user's files, and sometimes the “Network” and “Control Panel” icons. How to restore shortcut to my computer and others? If shortcuts and folders disappeared from the desktop, then they are easy to return by implementing the following sequence of actions.

1. Call the desktop context menu by clicking on an empty space with the right mouse button.
2. In the list that appears, click the line "Personalization".
3. In the new window, click "Change desktop icons".
   

4. In the window that appears, put a tick next to the desired components (and, of course, click OK). On the screenshot above, the selected “User Files” corresponds to the Ark icon.

Why the desktop does not display shortcuts after these actions? The fact is that the display of Windows desktop icons is included in the functions of the special file explorer.exe that is started when the computer is turned on with the system. When a computer is seriously infected, the launch of this file is blocked. In this case, checkmarks next to the components may be present, but the icons will not be displayed. How to return all shortcuts to the desktop? To solve the problem, you will need to restore the normal start of the explorer.exe file.

Rollback to the previous state

In Windows, by default, the ability to return (rollback) to the previous state is provided. In the course of work, the current state is periodically remembered, invisible to the user. Such "snapshots" of the system are called points of its recovery. If necessary, the entire PC can be returned to the memorized state. If the shortcuts disappeared from the desktop, then the easiest way to return them is to roll back to the date when they were displayed normally. This will require several steps.

1. Go through “Start” -> “Control Panel” -> “Restore” (since the “My Computer” icon is absent, an alternative call through it is not possible).
   

2. In the window that appears, click "Start System Restore", then "Next."
   

3. The new window displays the date the last restore point was created. If necessary, tick to display the points created earlier. Select the point corresponding to the date when the desktop icons were displayed.

After clicking “Next” and expressing consent to the system rollback, the PC will reboot, and in a few minutes the missing “My Computer” icon and others will be in the same place.

IMPORTANT. After that, you need to try not to repeat the actions, otherwise the icons may disappear again or disappear from time to time. In particular, you should not ignore browser warnings about the potential danger of visiting some sites. You may need to install more advanced anti-virus protection.

Unfortunately, on some computers, a very convenient rollback feature is disabled in order to save disk space. Sometimes this disservice to customers is provided even during PC pre-sale preparation.

Editing Windows registry

On a PC with the rollback feature disabled, the regular launch of the special file explorer.exe will have to edit the Windows registry. It is a huge database with hierarchically grouped parameters and settings of the operating system.

IMPORTANT. Editing should be done very carefully. With erroneous actions, an inexperienced user can seriously damage the system.

In the registry, Windows will need to edit the largest of its five sections - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. For this, a series of actions should be taken.

1. Hold down the Win key on the keyboard, press the Latin letter R. In the "Run" line that appears, type regedit and click OK.
   

2. In the left part of the Registry Editor window, expand the list of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.
   

3. Consistently reveal the following items in this list of SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion \ WinLogon. Then select Shell in the right list. Its "Value" should be explorer.exe. If this is not the case, then in the context menu of the Shell item, click “Change” and set this value.
   

4. In the list SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion go to the Image File Execution Options item. “The value of this item should not be assigned. If instead, explorer.exe is present there, then call the “Default” context menu, and press the “Delete” line.

After restarting the PC, the icons on the desktop will be restored.

Above was considered the restoration of shortcuts on the Windows 7 desktop. If the shortcuts disappeared from the desktop, not Windows 7, and other modern versions - 8 and 10, then similar actions should be taken. There are minor differences in the names of the icons. For example, if the shortcuts disappeared from the Windows 10 desktop, then after recovery, the user will see not “My Computer”, but “This Computer”.