No more icons on the Windows 7 Desktop

I'm visiting my father-in-law, and he asked me to solve a problem he has with his Windows 7. Since 1 or 2 weeks, all the icons that were present on his desktop disappeared (even the trash, or computer icon). He was not able to say what happened that may explain this behavior (software installation, problem...).

After several tests, investigations, here is what I found:

First, on the explorer, I see all the content of the desktop in the Favoris > Bureau (i.e. Favorites > Desktop) it's maybe important to say that the Windows 7 runs in french. When I right-click on this Bureau link, then properties, it says that the target directory is C:\Users\xxx\Desktop. However, if I browse the disk, I can go to the C:\Utilisateurs\xxx\Bureau (the french version of the same directory), but this directory is empty.

Another strange thing is that I tried to use RogueKiller application (an application that detects malwares). The prescan completes, then when I run the scan, the icons reappears on the Desktop (but C:\Users\xxx\Desktop is still empty). Unfortunately, after a reboot, everything is gone again (but reappears if I run the scan again).

Do you have any idea to solve this problem?

Solution 1:

Maybe its a dumb question by me but: Is this option checked?