Right-click any empty space on your desktop and choose the “Personalize” option. RELATED: How to Customize Your Icons in Windows

Whatever your current configuration, it’s simple enough to show or hide any of these icons on your system. Most Windows 10 systems-again by default-include only the Recycle Bin icon. Depending on your setup, some of these icons may have been included by default on your Windows 7 or 8 desktop.

Windows includes several desktop icons for system elements like the Recycle Bin, Computer (renamed to “This PC” in Windows 8 and 10), Control Panel, Network, and your user folder. If you have a SSD you won't have fragmentation.If you’ve previously added or removed the some of the “special” icons like Computer, User, and Control Panel to the desktop-or just want to know how to add them in Windows 10-here’s how to do it. Just make sure to do this last if you have a HD vs a SSD. I like Drive Genius, there are others but I've found this is one of the better ones. But before you do this make sure you have a good backup! Lastly, you may want to defrag your HD as the table maybe badly fragmented. You may need to run it though a few times to get all of the errors fixed and you still may need to boot up under single user for the desktop to get rebuilt as well.

I would strongly recommend you boot up under an external disk and run Disk Utility to fix both the permissions and the drive. Often when I see this when nothing has been altered the HD's Btree tables need repair. The other option here is to locate the files and just make new shortcuts. If you can't fix the pathing, you'll need to use the Select New Original button to relocate the file. If you see the error you may find fixing the Folder or Volume path easier than fixing all of the discrete shortcuts. Right click the icon and then select Get Info Within the general section note the Original entry see if you can figure out what changed. To fix this you will need to open each shortcut and relink the original file. This could be caused by moving or renaming the folder or the volume the original file was located. It appears your shortcuts have lost there linkage back to the original files which is why you are seeing the generic icon vs the discrete icon the app or document would normally have.

Mac desktop icons disappear