No longer able to delete desktop.Icons, which no longer work

With the last update to W10’s most of my desktop icons no longer work, nor can I delete them. when you right click the icon you get the same tile as are you click in the middle screen, no properties, no delete, nothing to do with the icon. When you hover the cursor over the nonfunctioning icons there no highlight box around them. Everything works fine in the taskbar at the bottom. I keep the lesser used stuff on the desktop. None the methods I know of to delete them works. I had this happen occasionally with XP and there was a method buried somewhere to do this, but W10....???

AndreTen said:

You could be a victim of a practical joke... Right click on desktop and select show desktop icons. Then change desktop wallpaper.

This is my home PC and I am the only one who uses it, however you nailed it. When I changed the desktop all of the inactive icons went with it. One wonders what happened? I have not messed with my desktop for over a year. I am retired this would have been a great practical joke to pull on the backstabbing nurses I used to work with. W10 has sure been interesting.

Thanks and have a Merry Christmas!!!!

Mark this one as solved

Never!!!!! if I could shoot that setting I would. Been an avid listener Steve Gibson on TWiT’s Security Now podcast for many years internet paranoia is a good thing. This PC is not even directly connected to my secured DSL modem/router it goes through a second fully secured router. No WiFi beacon etc, etc. Yet another Windows mystery. One wonders as I text this on My iPhone. 🤓

Do you live with anyone and do you leave the computer unlocked? One of my old co-workers would change the background of another co-workers computer at times. Nothing bad, just changed it from the football team Panthers to the football team Cowboys. I'm thinking something like this may have happened to you.

As I said am the only one who uses this computer and it is access locked. No one else is on the LAN. This happened with Windows 10 BSOD Edition 1809 😠

Googled this issue and it seems others have had similar problem but only AndreTen had the solution. 👍