Shortcuts usually appear after a short delay. But sometimes, even after some time, there is nothing on the screen but a screensaver. Why did the Windows 7 desktop disappear? What to do? Let's try to identify and solve the problem.
Disabled icon display
In all new OS versions, personalization settings completely disable the display of shortcuts. If you are not the only one using the computer, there is a chance that someone accidentally did this. This is the simplest and most harmless reason explaining why the WIndows 7 desktop disappeared. What should I do?
Right click anywhere on the screen. Find the "View" tab in the context menu. Make sure that the display of labels is turned on - there should be a checkmark next to the corresponding item.
Labels have been marked as hidden
To do this by accident is almost impossible, so in this case, most likely, someone decided to play a trick on you. Icons and folders marked as hidden are still in their places, but by default they are not displayed. If you have lost the desktop, shortcuts and icons in Windows 7 for this reason, you first need to enable the display of hidden elements. To do this, go to the "Control Panel" and open the "Folder Options". In the list on the "View" tab, it is necessary to scroll through the list of parameters and enable the display of hidden files and folders (there should be a checkmark next to the corresponding item). If shortcuts have appeared, it remains only to remove the "hidden" attribute in the properties.
System moved items to Unused Shortcuts
This is another possible reason explaining why the desktop disappeared. Windows 7 can automatically clean the desktop and periodically remove those icons that you don’t use from the workspace.
By default, the "Unused shortcuts" folder should be displayed on the desktop (if not, you can find it through the search). If this is your case, it will be enough to just drag the desired shortcuts back. After that, turn off cleaning. To do this, open the screen properties, find the "Desktop" tab and click "Settings ...". You just need to uncheck the box next to "Perform cleaning every 60 days" and save the changes. Although the advice to check the "Trash" seems to many to be stupid, we recommend doing it. In practice, it often happens that the labels were trite removed.
Explorer.exe is missing
Now let's talk about more complex options, when it becomes unclear why the Windows 7 desktop disappeared. What should I do if the above tips did not help? Most likely, when boot the system does not start explorer.exe - the process responsible for the external display of the system. To check this, go to "Task Manager"> "Processes" (Ctrl + Shift + Del) and try to find explorer. Sometimes when you try to open the dispatcher, nothing happens. In this case, start Windows in safe mode by pressing the F8 button at boot time and try again.
In the manager menu, select "File", click "New Task" and in the window that appears, enter the cmd command. In the window that opens, you need to specify the path to the file (by default, it lies in the Windows folder located on the C :) drive. If after this shortcuts appear, it means that the file is on the computer, and you just need to fix a few registry errors.
What to do if explorer.exe is missing from the computer and cannot be started? In this case, you will need the installation disk of your "Windows".
- Open the drive from another PC and find the file explorer.ex_ in the i386 directory.
- Copy it to any place, and then change the extension to .EXE (for this you just need to rename it).
- Write the finished file to a USB flash drive and connect it to your computer.
- Run the cmd command line through the "Task Manager".
- Browse to the files located on the USB flash drive. To do this, enter the name of the disk (E :, D: or another).
- Copy the file to the system folder using the copy explorer.exe command C: \\ Windows. If everything is done correctly, a message will be displayed stating that the operation was successful.
- Reboot the PC.
If there is no installation disk, you can copy explorer.exe from another computer on Windows 7.
Explorer.exe has disappeared from the registry
Let's talk more about what to do if the Windows 7 desktop disappears due to registry errors. In this case, when you start the process through the "Task Manager" shortcuts appear, but after restarting the computer disappear again. This means that the registry contains incorrect conditions for launching explorer.exe. Launch the Run application and enter regedit. The registry editor will open. You need to find the following directory:
The line Shell should be written explorer.exe. If some other file is registered instead, or nothing at all, change the value of the parameter. Are you done? Move on. Now we need to open another folder from the same directory.
If there is an item explorer.exe (or iexplorer.exe), you need to delete it, and then restart the PC. If the icons still do not appear, most likely the file is damaged and will have to be replaced.
System Settings Failed
Sometimes, even after adding the file to the registry, the problem persists. This may indicate a malfunction in the system settings. Fortunately, there is a special application on the Seven - System Restore, which returns the computer to an earlier state. You can run it using the same Run program. To do this, enter the command displayed in the screenshot below.
Then, following the prompts, select the date by which you want to roll back, and run the program. The main thing is to indicate the time when the system still worked 100% normally.
The computer was infected by viruses.
The banal option is when exactly because of the malware you lost the Windows 7 desktop. What you should do in this case, you probably know. To open the antivirus, you can enter the full address of its executable file in the Run window (for example, C: \\ Programs \ Antivirus \ antivirus.exe). It is recommended that you scan your PC in safe mode. After scanning, delete all infected files and restart the computer.
If even this does not help, the best way out is to simply reinstall Windows. The necessary files can be copied to the USB flash drive via the command line (of course, if you can remember their location).