Problem: Windows 11, Doesn't Show Desktop Icons nor Programs Running

Factual Questions
1

My Dell 7040 Windows 11 desktop computer was running fine when I turned it off yesterday, but I have problems today.

The monitor shows the wallpaper and taskbar but no desktop icons.

Hovering over a button for a program on the taskbar which has been opened will show a thumbnail of the program as it should be, but it won’t fill the monitor screen.

If I access this desktop via Windows remote desktop everything is working fine.

Restarting didn’t do any good [a couple times I got totally blank screens].

Any thoughts? Thanks.

2

Try: right click on desktop > click on view > click on show desktop icons.

3

It already had the checkmark. I unchecked on it: no change. I checked on it again: no change.

Thanks.

4

Sorry, can’t help.

I tried to upgrade my Win10 desktop to Win11 last month, and it was so wonky and messed up that I backed out of it and downgraded back to Win10.

Nope. Not ready for prime time.

5

I just found this from Make Use of:

8 Ways to Restore Missing Desktop Icons on Windows 11

Let me know if any of them work.

6

Working now. Random glitch?

Thanks.

7

A similar thing happened on my laptop yesterday. I had had it in sleep mode and when I started it again, there was only the wallpaper there. No task bar, no icons. Rebooting fixed it for me, though.

8

I had that happen several times in Windows 10 (or earlier). Killing the explorer.exe process in task manager always fixed this problem without needing to reboot.