How to Restore the Show Desktop Icon in the Quick Launch bar

If you accidentally drag the Show Desktop icon from your Quick Launch bar in Windows XP and then try to drag it back , it only creates a shortcut to the Show Desktop icon. Which means that you can’t delete the icon that you dragged on your desktop otherwise the Show Desktop icon won’t work because it’s only a shortcut. Here’s what you can do to quickly restore the Show Desktop icon.

1. Copy the following code in Notepad.

[Shell]

Command=2

IconFile=explorer.exe,3

[Taskbar]

Command=ToggleDesktop

2. Save the file as Show Desktop.scf in the folder C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch, where Username is the account name that you are logged in as. For example, if you are logged in as Matt, the path to the folder will be “C:\Documents and Settings\Matt\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch.” You should now see the Show Desktop icon in the Quick Launch bar.

Make sure that when you save the file in Notepad you change the Save as Type to “All files”, otherwise it will add the .txt extension to the file.