How can I add the Internet Explorer icon back to the Windows Vista desktop?

Daniel Petri

Jan 7, 2009

Someone at the Microsoft Windows Vista design team thought it would be very neat to give us an operating system that had no icons on the desktop. "They’re smart enough to find what they need" they said. Well, I hate it, and in my Add Desktop Icons in Windows Vista article I’ve showed you how to revert to the populated desktop.

Yet even then the Internet Explorer icon is missing and there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to restore it.

Well, there is a way.

To add the Internet Explorer icon back to the Windows Vista desktop follow these steps:

Open Registry Editor.
In Registry Editor, navigate to the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USERHKEY_CURRENT_USERHKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\NewStartPanel

Create the following key (DWORD 32-bit):

{871C5380-42A0-1069-A2EA-08002B30309D}

(just copy/paste, including the brackets)

Note: As always, before making changes to your registry you should always make sure you have a valid backup. In cases where you’re supposed to delete or modify keys or values from the registry it is possible to first export that key or value(s) to a .REG file before performing the changes.