Windows 10 Desktop Icons refreshing frequently and high Explorer CPU

I was looking into a problem with a Windows 10 Pro (10.0.19041) PC today where the desktop icons kept refreshing and Explorer was grabbing around 40% of the CPU.  Having tried all manner of things such as driver updates, windows updates, sfc /scannow etc I ended up hiding the icons on the desktop to see if that made any difference.  As soon as I turned them off, the refreshing stopped, so it appears that there was something on the desktop causing the problem.

I re-enabled the desktop icons and the refreshing started again, so I created a new folder on the desktop and moved all shortcuts / icons / documents etc to the new folder and as soon as I had done that, the refreshing stopped.

Opening up the new desktop folder, the refreshing started again, so I then moved items back to the desktop by type of item (e.g., word docs) until the problem stopped.  I was left with Adobe Acrobat Documents in the new desktop folder.  I closed the folder and viewed the desktop (without any PDF documents on it) and the refreshing wasn’t happening.  I then opened up the new desktop folder and the refreshing started again.

So – I then uninstalled Adobe Acrobat Reader DC at which point the refreshing stopped when viewing the PDF docs in the new desktop folder.  I then reinstalled Adobe Acrobat DC and set it to be the default program to open PDF documents, opened the new desktop folder and no refreshing.  I then moved the pdf docs back to the desktop and no more refreshing their either.

No idea why this happened, but if you come across a similar problem, see if Adobe Acrobat Reader DC is causing the same problem by moving all PDF docs off the desktop into a new desktop folder.  If it solves the problem, you’ll know how to fix it 🙂