The Show Desktop icon can be restored using any of two methods. Method 1: Manually re-create the Show Desktop icon Click Start, Run, and type Notepad.exe. Copy the following contents to Notepad. [Shell] Command=2 IconFile=explorer.exe,3 [Taskbar] Command=ToggleDesktop Save the file as Show Desktop.scf. Now, drag the file to the Quick Launch Toolbar. The file name should be Show Desktop.scf Method 2: Using the Regsvr32 command Click Start, Run and type the following command: regsvr32 /n /i:U shell32.dll The Show Desktop icon file should be available now.