Daddy Bob

DADDY BOB'S COMPUTER Q & A

 

January 25, 2008

Q. My Internet Explorer icon has disappeared from my desktop. How do I get it back?

A. In their infinite wisdom, Microsoft has determined that placing the Internet Explorer icon on the desktop was a security risk. Therefore, without giving the user the option, or even notifying them, Microsoft  removed the icon from the XP and Vista desktops with the installation of Internet Explorer V7. Not only did they remove the icon from the desktop, but they also removed the means to get it back.

In XP, if you right click the desktop, choose Properties, the Desktop tab, then the Customize Desktop button, you will see this dialog.

In Vista. Right click the desktop, choose Personalize then Change desktop icons you see this similar dialog.

In both cases, in the space marked by the red outline there used to be an item allowing you to put the Internet Explorer icon on your desktop. Yet, if the icon were on your desktop and you tried to delete it, you still get a message telling you to go to this dialog shown above to restore it.

This original Internet Explorer icon was not the normal short in that there is no shortcut arrow on it. It is a system icon similar to the My Documents, My Computer, My Network Places or the  Recycle Bin. (In Vista, the "My" before these items has been removed. It appears to be back in Windows 7).

Now, it is possible to easily create a shortcut to start IE by navigating to C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer, locating the file named iexplorer.exe, right clicking on it, selecting Send to, and choosing Desktop (Create shortcut). This will work, but it will have the telltale arrow on it indicating that it is a shortcut. To restore the original icon that existed before IE7 requires a registry edit.

The registry key involved is HKEY_current_user\Software\Microsoft\Windows \CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\NewStartPanel and it contains the item {871C5380-42A0-1069-08002B30309D}. If its dword is set to 0 the Internet Explorer icon will appear on the desktop. If set to 1 it will not. Since this key is located in the HKEY_CURENT_USER section it is user specific meaning that if more than one user account, each will have to make this choice for their desktop.

Microsoft has created a rather long and complex knowledge base article KB945402 that  provides ways to get the icon back without explaining why it was removed in the first place.  As usual, this article like most Microsoft's knowledge base articles, may prove somewhat difficult to understand. So, I have written a little program that will safely make this registry change for you. I call it RestoreIE and it can be downloaded from the Downloads section of this site, or by clicking HERE.

Once the icon has been restored to your desktop, you can, of course, delete it manually if you want, and then run RestoreIE to put it back.

Click HERE to view or download as a Microsoft Word document

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