Where Did My Icons Go and How Do I Get Them Back?

[Tuckerfan]

I was having problems with a program on my PC, as it turned out, the issue was caused by an add-on which I'd installed for that program. There not being an easy way to uninstall said add-on, I did some poking around on the web to find out what I needed to do to remove that add-on. The solution involved poking around in the User folder. It turned out that file was hidden and I had to tell Windows (I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium) to show the file. I picked "Apply" in the dialog box, and Windows proceeded to spend several minutes scanning the folder. Once it was done, I realized that I needed to go to bed, since the dialog box was still up, I clicked 'Ok' and it began scanning again. Not knowing how it'd react if one of the cats began walking on the keyboard while I was away (and really wanting to get to bed), I canceled that, canceled the operation, closed everything out and discovered that all the icons on my desktop were gone.

Looking in File Manager (or whatever they're calling it these days), I can't find a bunch of the folders which were once there (including the Users folder). None of my stuff seems to be deleted, nor did I click on anything last night to delete any files. Rebooting didn't fix the problem, so I'm stumped. Anyone know how to unfubar this?