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A Simple guide to restore accidentally deleted Show Desktop icon in Windows Quick Launch Bar.

Recently I ended up in deleting the Show Desktop icon from my Quick Launch Bar accidentally. I needed the button back in place badly since I mostly have lot of windows open most of the time. Show Desktop icon was a handy for accessing my Junk Desktop. So I was researching ways to restore my Show Desktop icon back in place and I have found the following solution.

Manually recreate the Show Desktop icon
Create a text file with the extension .scf (preferably Show Desktop.scf). SCF stands for Shell Command File. SCF files are executed by shell32.dll and the file extension is one of the special ones that remain hidden even if you instruct Windows to show file extensions. Paste the following code into the file.


[Shell]
Command=2
IconFile=explorer.exe,3
[Taskbar]
Command=ToggleDesktop


Save the file and place the same in Quick Launch bar and now you’re done.

Using the Regsvr32 command

This one is pretty simple, just go to run prompt or command prompt and type in the following command.

regsvr32 /n /i:U shell32.dll

The regsvr32 command line tool used to register .dll as command components into the registry. The above command with instruct Windows to register shell32.dll with optional install string, which enables Show Desktop icon back into place.

The Show Desktop icon file should be available now automatically in Quick Launch bar after executing the regsvr32 command.

Finally I was able to access my desktop quickly as I wanted.