Recover Missing Office Icons

Early in January of 2023, Microsoft released a Microsoft Defender update that flagged Microsoft Office icons like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and even Microsoft Edge as a threat. It removed the shortcuts off the desktop and from the start menu as well. It is important to note that Microsoft has fixed the error however, the fix did not restore the shortcuts and the applications needed to be ran via the applications exe filename.

Microsoft office was not uninstalled from your computer. You just need to look for the file location and create the shortcut back on your desktop and Start Menu to fix it.

The Microsoft Office applications are located in the following directory in C: drive:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\Office16

From here, scroll down and you can see your office suite just named a little different.

From here, right click the applications and send to desktop where a shortcut will be made for you. For Microsoft Edge, the file located in the following directory in your C drive:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Edge\Application