I had a small IE icon on the bottom tool bar of my desktop and it is gone?

Why does microsoft mess around with my computer like this? It must have been an automatic download that did it. They took away that tiny icon and put a larger icon on my desktop. I cannot drag the large one down onto the tool bar because a big X shows up. I used that tiny icon all the time.

Any suggestions?

I had a small IE icon on the bottom tool bar of my desktop and it is gone?microsoft internet explorer

Go to C:\ Documents and Settings\ %26lt;your username%26gt;\ Application Data\ Microsoft\ Internet Explorer\ Quick Launch. (If you're using Vista, replace "Documents and Settings" with "Users"). Right-click in an empty part of the folder and select New %26gt; Shortcut. Type "C:\ Program Files\ Internet Explorer\ IEXPLORE.EXE" for the shortcut path; click Next and type "Internet Explorer" for the name. Click Finish; you should have an Internet Explorer icon in your quick launch area.

Another way is to create a shortcut to IEXPLORE.EXE using the above method and dragging it to the quick launch bar. Or, you could right-click-drag the Internet Explorer icon off the desktop and onto the quick launch bar and choose "Create Shortcut Here".

I had a small IE icon on the bottom tool bar of my desktop and it is gone?microsoft downloads internet explorer

right click in a blank part of the tool bar between icons and choose customise notification icons
do you mean at the bottom just right of the Start button? if so this is your quick launch tool bar.

This behavior can occur if the following registry value is set to 0x0000:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER .. SOFTWARE .. Microsoft .. Windows .. CurrentVersion .. Policies .. Explorer .. ClassicShell

This registry value is often set to 0x0000 when the Microsoft TweakUI Power Toy utility is used to disable Microsoft Internet Explorer.

To resolve this issue, delete the following registry value, log off, and then log on to the computer:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER .. SOFTWARE .. Microsoft .. Windows .. CurrentVersion .. Policies .. Explorer .. ClassicShell

(note -- i have used .. instead of \ because yahoo changes this to short hand)