Hi Eric,
Hit ctrl+shift+escape to open task manager, then kill ("end process")
explorer.exe on the processes tab after logging on. Then go to the
applications tab and click "new task" and enter explorer.exe, click ok. This
will restart the explorer shell. If the icons show up now, it means that
something in your startup axis is interfering with them initializing.
If it is just your user account that is affected, the startup folder would
be the first place to look. If it is all accounts on this machine, then you
can use msconfig's startup tab to selective enable and disable processes
that are loading at boot to isolate which one is the cause. I would start by
disabling antivirus/antimalware applications as they tend to be a major
cause of these things. Also, the Google desktop has been shown to cause some
odd behavior, you might try uninstalling it if this applies to you.
--
Best of Luck,
Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
Windows help -
www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts
http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com