Question
I accidentally deleted the Show Desktop icon which sits normally on the bottom left hand corner of the Taskbar. How do I restore the icon?
Answer
The Show Desktop icon can be restored using any of these methods:
Method 1: Using Guided Help to re-create the Show Desktop icon
Here are the screenshots of Guided Help.
Method 2: Manually re-create the Show Desktop icon
Click Start, Run, and type
Notepad.exe. Copy the following contents to Notepad.
[Shell]
Command=2
IconFile=explorer.exe,3
[Taskbar]
Command=ToggleDesktop
Save the file as
Show Desktop.scf. Now, drag the file to the Quick Launch Toolbar.
(Notepad might automatically append a .txt extension to the file name. Remove this extension if present.) The file name should be
Show Desktop.scf
Method 3: Using the Regsvr32 command
Click Start, Run and type the following command:
regsvr32 /n /i:U shell32.dll
The
Show Desktop icon file should be available now.
Method 4: Copy the file from another user account
Every user account will have a copy of
Show Desktop.scf file. Search for the file named
Show Desktop.scf in your computer by logging in as administrator. Copy it to your user profile path here:
%Appdata%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch
(Type the above path in
Start,
Run dialog)
Related links
Description of Guided Help for Microsoft Knowledge Base articles