How To Return A Computer Icon To The Windows 10 Desktop

Windows
How To Return A Computer Icon To The Windows 10 Desktop

The question of how to return the “My Computer” icon (This computer) to the Windows 10 desktop from the moment the system was released was asked on this site more often than any other question related to the new OS (except for questions about problems with updating). And, despite the fact that this is an elementary action, I decided to write this instruction. Well, at the same time shoot a on this topic.

The reason why users are interested in the issue is that the computer icon on the Windows 10 desktop is missing by default (with a clean installation), and it turns on not like it was in previous versions of the OS. And “My computer” itself is a very convenient thing; I also keep it on my desktop.

Enabling Desktop Icon Display

In Windows 10, to display the desktop icons (This computer, Trash, Network and user folder), the same control panel applet is present as before, but it starts from another place.

The standard way to get to the right window is to right-click anywhere on the desktop, select “Personalization”, and then open the “Themes” item.

It is there that in the “Related Settings” section you will find the necessary item “Desktop Icon Settings”.

By opening this item, you can specify which icons to display and which to not. Including turn on “My computer” (This computer) on the desktop or remove the basket from it, etc.

There are other ways to quickly get into the same settings for returning the computer icon to the desktop, which are suitable not only for Windows 10, but for all the latest versions of the system.

  1. In the control panel, in the search box in the upper right, type the word “Icons”, in the results you will see the item “Show or hide ordinary icons on the desktop”.
  2. You can open a window with the settings for displaying desktop icons with a tricky command launched from the Run window, which can be called up by pressing the Windows R keys. Command: Rundll32 shell32.dll, Control_RunDLL desk.cpl ,, 5 (spelling mistakes have not been made, everything is exactly so).

Below is a instruction that shows the steps described. And at the end of the article, another way is described to enable desktop icons using the registry editor.

I hope that the considered simple method for returning the computer icon to the desktop was clear.

Returning the “My Computer” icon in Windows 10 using the registry editor

There is another way to return this icon, as well as everyone else, is to use the registry editor. I doubt that it will be useful to someone, but for general development it will not hurt.

So, in order to turn on the display of all system icons on the desktop (note: this fully works if you have not previously used turning icons on and off using the control panel):

  1. Run the registry editor (Win R keys, enter regedit)
  2. Open the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ Advanced
  3. Find the 32-bit DWORD parameter named HideIcons (if it is missing, create it)
  4. Set the value to 0 (zero) for this parameter.

After that, close the computer and restart the computer, or exit Windows 10 and log in again.

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