Start Orb not working and Icons missing

Hello all,
Intresting problem. All my desktop Icons are missing. Text is still there but missing the picture. Also they are missing from folders that contain icons and shortcuts as well. But the task bars stills shows icons for anti virus etc. ALso start orb will not function to bring up start menu.
Running windows 7 enterprise. A have tried all the things I know to do. I have stopped explorer in services and restarted it. I have checked for malware(clean) I have check display settings etc. Any advice would be appericated.
Thanks:t

Have you tried System Restore ? Does the issue repeat in Safe Mode ?

yes I have tried starting in safe mode. I have used system restore to restore to a point 4 days before the issue and when it reboots the problem is still there.
I did restore from a WIndows 7 back up and fixed the problem. Seems there were updates installed at 3 am but when I tried to undo those updates they were not present on the list of installed updates. I am back up and running with windows updates turned off. Still a strange situation.

Well done having a backup. :)
The idea that Explorer.exe may have been corrupted is very suspicious of malware. The updates may have triggered something, but its speculation at this point. You will have to run Windows Update eventually. I recommend you run Secunia PSI to check for outdated programs.
Also, check all your hardware drivers are updated, too. Afterwards, run Windows Update manually. DL and install one update at a time. If one is the cause of the problem it will be easier to isolate.

If nothing else Windows 7 makes it easy I always have run an imaging/restore program on all other versions of windows and my machine has the room for the backups. I just wonder the root cause. The nachine scanned clean for malware as well as viruses. So googling resulted in the explorer.exe option and the Microsoft knowledge base was useless with this problem. Any way thanks for the imput!:)

This tells how to rebuild the icon cache

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...e-rebuild.html

Nice but the icons on my machine were gone..nothing but text. I was able to click properties and see the icon in the window but unable to display them when I clicked ok or when I chose to change them once that was executited the problem persisted.