Windows 10: no icons displayed and desktop blinks as it was refreshing

my laptop doesn't show any icons and only displaying the background with the taskbar. also it refreshes every time like it blinks with black screen. how do i fix this?

:)

 

Blinking/Flashing Icons on Desktop PC

Hi:

I am experiencing blinking/flashing of several icons that are located on my Win10-64 Pro desktop PC's screen and icons that are pinned to within the taskbar. The PC is a DELL XPS 8700 desktop. I think my PC has Windows 10 version 1803 installed on 5/19/2018, and am getting updates automatically from Microsoft.

Observations:
When booting the PC, after the login screen, it is taking an unusual amount of time to load the "image" part of the desktop icons; the filenames in text appear first and quickly, and then a delay occurs before the icon images are "painted" onto the monitor's screen. I also noticed that while having file manager opened, the same file names blink in the directory structure pane, at the far left. Just now noticed, as I am writing this, that while using Internet Explorer browser, blinking has stopped, taskbar icons have disappeared and replaced with blank, box outlines, no response when clicking on a desktop icon; this happened once before and I had to reboot PC to get control of taskbar back.

What I have tried thus far and results:

1. I ran the inbuilt DELL diagnostics, and all hardware passed the "thorough" tests.
2. I followed instructions given in this YouTube video: , and used msconfig to locate and uncheck the boxes for (1) WindowsErrorReporting and (2) ProblemsReportandSolutions. I also used this video's instructions to uninstall iCloud. The result of doing that is, possibly, a slow down in the blinking rate of icons within the taskbar and on the desktop, but the flashing continues. This was done during Windows normal mode (while icons were blinking); I have yet to attempt these same steps while in Windows Safe Mode.
3. I then followed instructions given in this YouTube video: , and used regedit to locate (1) ForegroundFlashCount and (2) ForegroundLockTimeout and reset each of those to 0 (zero). The result of doing that is no improvement/change in the flashing icons.
4. I also used Windows Restore to go back to 4 OCT 2018. That has not helped, either.

I think there was an automatic windows update done on my PC, overnight sometime after 5th OCT. I would like to know how to go about identifying and undoing the last Windows update? and how to disallow automatic updates from Microsoft?

I do not know what to do next. Any help would be appreciated.

TNX.

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Desktop icons

Greg,

I deleted IconCache but when I went to see if it worked by moving an icon on my desktop and then right clicked to refresh, the icon did not move back. It seems like there is a step missing where I need to save the positions of the icons on my desktop. Any
other suggestions?

Lou

 

Remove Linux Desktop Icons

I am not sure whether this will work (Ubuntu does not have icons like that on the desktop by default), but I suggest opening the trash bin and sweeping the icons into the window showing the trash bin.