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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

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Source: Restore the Show Desktop icon to Quick Launch bar