My Windows 10 laptop won't display the desktop

[Trevor Pierson]

I woke up this morning and booted up my computer to begin working on my college homework. As soon as I signed in, my desktop popped up like normal, and then all of a sudden faded, the task bar changed to the windows menu task bar, and the windows menu opened. I've right clicked on the windows button in the bottom left hand corner and clicked desktop, but all it does is cause the windows menu to disappear, and then I'm left staring at my faded desktop background with no task bar, and no icons to speak of. I've been able to work around this by right clicking searching on the windows menu for file explorer and seeing my what's on my desktop from there, but it's very frustrating. Whenever I close a window, the desktop (along with all of my icons) will appear to be normal, before quickly disappearing and taking me back to the windows menu.

 

[davidhk129]

the instructions will be a bit lengthy.
Make sure you follow the steps to the letter. If at any stage you don't understand or unsure of, stop and post back for clarification.
The instructions below is to do 2 things....
1. Run your computer ins Safe Mode.
2. While in safe mode, run a system restore to roll back your computer to a date when everything was working fine.

Go to Safe Mode............
Shut down and then restart your computer BUT do NOT sign in.
At bottom right, there is a Power icon. Left click at it will give you Restart option.
Press SHIFT key and hold it.
While still holding, click Restart..............
select Troubleshooting
select Advanced options
select Startup Settings
select Safe Mode
select either #4,5 or 6. It does not matter which one

Run System Restore ..............
Right click at Start button
at the popup box, click System
left side, click System Protection
click System Restore
at the bottom, check the box " Choose a different restore point"
bottom left, check the box "Show more restore points"
among the list, click at a date BEFORE this problem started as your restore point
click Next
follow the prompts from here on
System restore will begin.
It will take quite a while.
When finishes, it will restart.
Sign in and you will be back to your normal desktop.

Please post back the result.

 

[Trevor Pierson]

Well, I did exactly as you said, and it worked . I decided to wait a day before posting back in case it reverted since I had reverted it to only the day before it became a problem. I booted it up this morning without issue

 

[davidhk129]

Wonderful.
Thank you for posting the result.
One last thing, please mark this thread as Solved.
Thank you.

 

[Billy Franklin]

the instructions will be a bit lengthy.
Make sure you follow the steps to the letter. If at any stage you don't understand or unsure of, stop and post back for clarification.
The instructions below is to do 2 things....
1. Run your computer ins Safe Mode.
2. While in safe mode, run a system restore to roll back your computer to a date when everything was working fine.

Go to Safe Mode............
Shut down and then restart your computer BUT do NOT sign in.
At bottom right, there is a Power icon. Left click at it will give you Restart option.
Press SHIFT key and hold it.
While still holding, click Restart..............
select Troubleshooting
select Advanced options
select Startup Settings
select Safe Mode
select either #4,5 or 6. It does not matter which one

Run System Restore ..............
Right click at Start button
at the popup box, click System
left side, click System Protection
click System Restore
at the bottom, check the box " Choose a different restore point"
bottom left, check the box "Show more restore points"
among the list, click at a date BEFORE this problem started as your restore point
click Next
follow the prompts from here on
System restore will begin.
It will take quite a while.
When finishes, it will restart.
Sign in and you will be back to your normal desktop.

Please post back the result.

I just tried this, but my restore function is turned off. Do you know of another option?

 

[Keanu]

There was a much simpler way to do this, to simply put it your computer was in Tablet Mode just go to your settings, type in Tablet Mode and click on Tablet Mode and turn it off.

 

[Keanu]

I just tried this, but my restore function is turned off. Do you know of another option?

Yeah I just said it go ahead and look at it

 

[MarknPancho]

the instructions will be a bit lengthy.
Make sure you follow the steps to the letter. If at any stage you don't understand or unsure of, stop and post back for clarification.
The instructions below is to do 2 things....
1. Run your computer ins Safe Mode.
2. While in safe mode, run a system restore to roll back your computer to a date when everything was working fine.

Go to Safe Mode............
Shut down and then restart your computer BUT do NOT sign in.
At bottom right, there is a Power icon. Left click at it will give you Restart option.
Press SHIFT key and hold it.
While still holding, click Restart..............
select Troubleshooting
select Advanced options
select Startup Settings
select Safe Mode
select either #4,5 or 6. It does not matter which one

Run System Restore ..............
Right click at Start button
at the popup box, click System
left side, click System Protection
click System Restore
at the bottom, check the box " Choose a different restore point"
bottom left, check the box "Show more restore points"
among the list, click at a date BEFORE this problem started as your restore point
click Next
follow the prompts from here on
System restore will begin.
It will take quite a while.
When finishes, it will restart.
Sign in and you will be back to your normal desktop.

Please post back the result.

HOLY-MOLY! Here's what happened when I tried this 'fix': I followed the instructions to get to SAFE MODE, and when I got to the last step where you click on SAFE MODE... Except in my case it said something about 'Enabling Safe Mode'... Tried clicking on it. No good. Then I clicked on the Restart box. Oddly, that fixed it. I've rebooted again, and again the Desktop Icons appeared. Thank you David HK!
Have a great day everyone!

 

[Jorge S]

I've recently switched to free AEROADMIN and it looks good.
You may want to do the same as soon as you try.
Hope this helps

 

[Alicia Terrizzi]

the instructions will be a bit lengthy.
Make sure you follow the steps to the letter. If at any stage you don't understand or unsure of, stop and post back for clarification.
The instructions below is to do 2 things....
1. Run your computer ins Safe Mode.
2. While in safe mode, run a system restore to roll back your computer to a date when everything was working fine.

Go to Safe Mode............
Shut down and then restart your computer BUT do NOT sign in.
At bottom right, there is a Power icon. Left click at it will give you Restart option.
Press SHIFT key and hold it.
While still holding, click Restart..............
select Troubleshooting
select Advanced options
select Startup Settings
select Safe Mode
select either #4,5 or 6. It does not matter which one

Run System Restore ..............
Right click at Start button
at the popup box, click System
left side, click System Protection
click System Restore
at the bottom, check the box " Choose a different restore point"
bottom left, check the box "Show more restore points"
among the list, click at a date BEFORE this problem started as your restore point
click Next
follow the prompts from here on
System restore will begin.
It will take quite a while.
When finishes, it will restart.
Sign in and you will be back to your normal desktop.

Please post back the result.

So, I am trying to do this because my computer is locked up and I can't get to my desktop. I followed the first part of the directions to a T, but when I get to the "run system restore", I right click on the start button and the only thing that shows up is shut down. Any advice?

 

[Neikea]

the instructions will be a bit lengthy.
Make sure you follow the steps to the letter. If at any stage you don't understand or unsure of, stop and post back for clarification.
The instructions below is to do 2 things....
1. Run your computer ins Safe Mode.
2. While in safe mode, run a system restore to roll back your computer to a date when everything was working fine.

Go to Safe Mode............
Shut down and then restart your computer BUT do NOT sign in.
At bottom right, there is a Power icon. Left click at it will give you Restart option.
Press SHIFT key and hold it.
While still holding, click Restart..............
select Troubleshooting
select Advanced options
select Startup Settings
select Safe Mode
select either #4,5 or 6. It does not matter which one

Run System Restore ..............
Right click at Start button
at the popup box, click System
left side, click System Protection
click System Restore
at the bottom, check the box " Choose a different restore point"
bottom left, check the box "Show more restore points"
among the list, click at a date BEFORE this problem started as your restore point
click Next
follow the prompts from here on
System restore will begin.
It will take quite a while.
When finishes, it will restart.
Sign in and you will be back to your normal desktop.

Please post back the result.

When I right click start and select system, the window pops up briefly then disappears, how to fix that?

 

[Garyw]

So, I am trying to do this because my computer is locked up and I can't get to my desktop.

Sounds like a different issue. Maybe starting a new thread would be better.