Thanks for your response.....Just did what a few of my friends did - clicked "the install Windows 10" button and when it installed after a couple of hours, they found everything right were it was -...

Several people I know updated to Windows 10 and had n problems.
There desktop icons returned - and they were able to access all their old files.
Not sure why I can's as I just clicked the install...

I tried to install windows 10 - it seemed to work but then all my desktop shortcuts were gone and I couldn't access anything - unless I searched one by one each file....what have I done wrong and why...