Help, I lost my desktop

I'm running windows xp.......

 

Somehow, all the icons on my desktop disappeared. The only way I can do anything is to hit Ctrl + Alt + Delete which brings up the task manager. I screwed something up obviously, but I am clueless....any help is appreciated.

anyone?

 

Maybe they are hidden. Right click on mouse in desktop and go to arrange icons by. And then click on "show desktop items". Hope that helps

Thanks Willie, but nothing happens when I right click. The start menu isn't even showing up on the desktop. Only thing on my desktop is the picture of my son that I use as the wallpaper for the desktop. I've been googling all morning and can't find anything to help.

if you do ctrl-alt-del, click on the Processes tab and see if explorer.exe is running.  If so, highlight it and click End Process and see if it resets your Start menu.  On the applications tab is a button called New Task, you can type explorer.exe in that and see if that might work as well.

 

Have you rebooted?