Restore Missing or Disappeared IE (Internet Explorer) Desktop Icon in Windows XP SP3
In Windows XP SP3 system, no matter it’s been upgraded from Windows XP with no service pack, SP1 or SP2 with XP SP3 standalone update package or Windows/Microsoft/Automatic Update, or user clean install from scratch with an integrated Windows XP with SP3 CD ISO image, the special desktop icon of Internet Explorer (IE) browser on desktop has gone missing. The IE desktop icon is different from normal IE shortcut, where IE desktop icon is special shell shortcut that provides quick access to Internet Options, and has shorter right click contextual menu.
Previously, Windows XP user has an option whether to turn or off (display or not display) the IE icon on desktop, by going to Control Panel -> Display -> Desktop -> Customize Desktop, and enable or disable Internet Explorer under Desktop Items section, or right click on Desktop, and then go to Properties -> Desktop -> Customize Desktop, and tick or untick Internet Explorer in Desktop Items section.
In Windows XP SP3, the Internet Explorer option under the Desktop Icons section is missing, or disappeared. In fact, this is not a bug and is by design, probably due to anti-trust litigation settlement which requires Microsoft to disintegrate IE from operating system so that other web browsers can compete freely with IE6, IE7 or even IE8 in future. As such, IE desktop icon no longer exists and the ability to display IE desktop icon by selecting option in Control Panel’s Desktop Items customization has also been removed from Windows XP on SP3 (actually it has been removed previously from Windows XP SP2 or earlier when user install hotfix updates or IE7, but there is trick to restore the IE desktop icon, which continue to applied now). The behavior of Internet Explorer 7, which is bundled with Windows Vista is also the same.
User can always re-create a normal shortcut to Internet Explorer browser to place on desktop. But as mentioned, the shortcut created will be the normal type with an arrow on the bottom left corner, has plenty more right click context menu items, and when select “Properties”, it’s shortcut properties that is been opened, and not Internet Options in the case of IE desktop icon.
To restore and re-display Internet Explorer desktop icon item in Windows XP SP3, simply download reset_ie_icon.zip and extract reset_ie_icon.reg from the .zip archive. Then double click on reset_ie_icon.reg to execute it and apply the necessary registry keys into system registry to bring back the IE desktop icon. The registry files supports Windows XP SP3 user who uses new Start Menu style and will fix also issue related to Local Policy restricts IE desktop item from displaying.
If you prefer to resolve the issue manually, perform the following:
- Click Start, Run.
- Type regedit.exe.
- Navigate to the following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\
HideDesktopIcons\NewStartPanel (wrapped for easy reading)Note: If HideDesktopIcons and NewStartPanel do not exist, create new registry keys for them.
- In the right hand pane, double-click {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D} key.
If the registry value name does not exist, create a new DWORD value and name it as {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}
- Enter dword value data as 0 to enable the Internet Explorer icon on the Desktop.
For user who’re using Classic Start Menu, replace NewStartPanel with ClassicStartMenu instead so that the registry key location is as follow:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\ClassicStartMenu (wrapped for easy reading)
Other steps are exactly the same with the above. Refresh the desktop after change to display the IE desktop icon.
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Entries (RSS)
May 12th, 2008 02:13
Esto es completamente una sutileza (por no decir una pelotudez) por parte de Micro$oft, ya que en realidad deberian haberlo borrado de la instalacion y no dejarlo, pero sacando el icono del escritorio.
Greets from Argentina.
May 12th, 2008 04:30
es, that is old news. And incorrectly reported as well!
For one thing, the change has nothing to do with SP3, it was made well before
SP3 was released. The Internet Explorer checkbox was removed from the Desktop Items dialog box under XP SP2 when you installed the following update, released on Nov. 13, 2007:
Microsoft Security Bulletin MS07-061 - Critical http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS07-061.mspx
Vulnerability in Windows URI Handling Could Allow Remote Code Execution http://support.microsoft.com/kb/943460
The second of those links also explains the removal of the checkbox, and points to the MSKB article showing how to restore it if desired:
The Internet Explorer check box disappears from the Desktop Items dialog box after you install the QFE version of security update MS07-061 on a Windows XP Service Pack 2-based computer
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/945402
In addition, even though I applied that fix back in Nov. 2007 (as would everybody properly keeping their systems updated) to all of my XP SP2 systems, the IE icon remained if IE7 had been installed, or is re-instated after installing IE7. In otherwords, even *without* the registry fix, I have IE icons on the (Windows Classic) desktops on all of my systems, including those with SP2 and KB943460 installed, SP3 installed via Windows Update, SP3 installed via the full install package (WindowsXP-KB936929-SP3-x86-ENU.exe),
and systems loaded with SP3 integrated into the installation disc.
All-in-all, I’ve installed SP3 probably 50 times already on various systems, and each one has an IE icon on the Windows Classic desktop by default.
October 1st, 2008 23:12
I have found this fix is so many locations it isn’t funny, and it has NEVER worked on XP. It did work on Vista though.
Oddly enough, this fix is also on Microsoft’s website and they state it works in Vista and XP (which id doesn’t).
What DID work, was changing the following registry key’s Attributes value (REG_DWORD) to 0:
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CLSID\{871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}\ShellFolder\
It was set to 0×00100000 for some reason. This worked on 2 user profiles on the same machine, and the fix at the top of this page did not need to be applied.
October 3rd, 2008 14:52
Marc, I tried the fix mentioned in this article and like you said, it didn’t work on my XP. I tried the fix you suggested and it did the job. Many thanks.
October 21st, 2008 21:14
Gostaria de ressaltar que
No painel do lado direito, clique duas vezes em (871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-chave 08002B30309D).[ o certo é {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D} com { }
If the registry value name does not exist, create a new DWORD value and name it as {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D} Se o valor do registro nome não existir, crie um novo valor DWORD e nomeie-a como (871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D)incorreto {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}correto
Essa dica precisa ser atulizada, pois é o valor correto é {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D} com {} e não com () como relata no post.
November 4th, 2008 00:05
None of these solutions worked for me at first (XPPSP2 and SP3, IE6 and/or IE7) either alone or all together. But, combined with all the solutions mentioned above, I went to HKCR\CLSID\{871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}\ShellFolder and changed ‘Attributes’ to ‘0′. (Oddly, in another ‘working’ computer the value was ‘36′ in decimal.)
I did the same at HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CLSID\{871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}\ShellFolder and also at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}\ShellFolder and so far, after a reboot I have gotten the fully functional IE desktop item back on all user accounts. I hope this helps. And thanks to all of you who have also contributed to fixing this annoying problem.
November 4th, 2008 00:09
I did not mention that although I have my desktop item back, the option to enable it is still missing from the Desktop Items panel within the Display Properties.
November 11th, 2008 18:42
I found the first solution worked fine on a machine that had just been upgraded to SP3 – the REG_DWORD entry under NewStartPanel was present and its data value just needed changing to 0. Having got the icon back, I deleted it on purpose (It’s what customers do all the time…). Now I couldn’t get it back at all, trying all of the suggestions above. Even deleting the NewStartPanel key and recreating the entries from a reg file from a working PC did not help. Finally I trawled through the entire registry searching for all occurrences of DWORDs named {871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D} and ensured all their data values were set to 0. This did the trick. I guess each instance may be slightly different, dependant on how the icon was removed
November 14th, 2008 17:18
many thanks. its usefull and solved my poroblem. thanks
November 23rd, 2008 07:01
Microsoft has released a “Fix it” in KB945402 that will do this for you automatically on both WinXP and Vista.
November 24th, 2008 13:35
Want to fix this automatically? See knowledge base article 945402 and click Fix It!
November 24th, 2008 13:36
Want to fix this automatically? See knowledge base article 945402 and click Fix It!