Missing icons on desktop Windows XP

All the desktop icons have vanished only the taskbar is shown ,now what!
In this case there is a simple fix:
Right click the desktop and in the context menu select Arrange Icons By and make sure Show Desktop Icons is ticked.

If you want to only add the My Computer ,My documents ,Network icons on a new installation or computer then follow the steps in this article:
http://mycomputerdidwhat.blogspot.com/2008/05/how-to-add-my-computer-my-documents.html