Fix Desktop Items Disappear After Renaming In Windows 7 Problem

Are your Windows 7 desktop items disappearing, when you rename them? This happens when you rename a file, folder, or even a shortcut and the icons appear only when you do a refresh. Microsoft has acknowledged this problem and provided a quick fix.

The cause of this problem is that UAC has been turned off on your PC. The User Account Control setting, accessible through the Control panel, when set to ‘Never Notify’, may result in the above described scenario for a logged on user.

Fix:

1. Turn on the UAC; set it to the default setting of ‘Notify me only when programs try to make changes to my computer’. You may want to check out our article on how to turn on/off UAC in Windows 7.

Or in case you have turned off UAC to get rid of the nag screens and do not want to enable it back again, here is an alternative solution for you:

2. Open the Desktop folder while renaming the files or folders and press F5 to refresh the desktop.

via Microsoft knowledge base article KB2018895.