Unable to show desktop icons

I'm having this problem for a while now, I didn't have the chance to do system restore because i'm so busy, I forgot about the issue. Everything is working fine, I mean I can right click on the desktop, change the wall paper and everything, but no desktop icons. I have already tried to do the show desktop, clicked on run then typed explorer, and tried to use the recovery console (Unfortunately, it's not user friendly so it didn't do anything.) but still no desktop icons show. I can only access the desktop icons using the toolbar option. Any other ideas on how to resolve this?? I don't want to do system recovery. H E L P ! ! ! !