Desktop icons have disappeared after installing Lion.

Hey guys,

So I have had this problem for about 2 months now....with the main problems being:

1) a loss of my desktop icons

2) inability to right click on the desktop

3) loss of my dashboard

It is an extremely inconvenient problem, especially when I am an medical student who uses their labtop a great deal. The dashboard offers many great tools (ex: sticky notes) everyday and without them now it is a henderence. Everything else seems to be working fine....but this one problem has really disapointed me with the Apple operating system.

Now I have found only temporarily relief by doing the following sequence posted in a response above:

"Finder

GO

Press & HOLD Option Key.

This brings up Library

Choose Preferences

Remove

com.apple.desktop.plist

Remove

com.apple.finder.plist

Go back to Library and delete CACHES folder

Reboot.

Desktop Icons restored!"

I am grateful to whoever posted that, but please note that THIS ONLY LASTS FOR 1-2 DAYS. Other than that, the symptoms reappear and I am left with the same problem. My mac was was purchased refurbished in November, but I was assured that refurbished do no have any lasting issues....so I am thinking I have a problem with the Operating system.....specially the recent software update download.

If anyone can help me, please please let me know.

Apple User

Concerned Med Student

this also worked for me - thx!

open terminal and type without sudo

defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool true

killall Finder

Works like a charm!

Dude, read all of these and this worked. QUCK. FAST. Oh, and it WORKED. thanks!

1) Open terminal and type "sudo"

2) Type "defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool true"

3) Type "killall Finder"

Hey Everyone.

So I've just had the exact same problem

I noticed that when I was deleting icons off my desktop, that they were still there but not clickable. So I restarted my macbook pro only to find that everything has been 'removed / hidden / deleted' from my desktop

Kinda freakin out as I've alot of important info on there which is not backed up :-/ - stupid

I've tried:

Dude, read all of these and this worked. QUCK. FAST. Oh, and it WORKED. thanks!

1) Open terminal and type "sudo"

2) Type "defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool true"

3) Type "killall Finder"

Which didn't work, and I've tried removing the finder.plst from the library and that didn't work...

Do we have any more suggestions?

This works a dream, thank you very much

THIS ACTUALLY WORKED!!!!

open terminal and type (or simply copy and paste this) at prompt:

defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool true

killall Finder

It worked and ALL of my documents and icons reappeared - how wonderful!!!

Thank you SO much cfbfrommonza