A Home Group icon has appeared on my desktop, why?

To remove the Home desktop Group icon, you need to manually modify some registry key:

1. Open notepad and then copy the following text (without ===) into it.

================================
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\NewStartPanel]
"{B4FB3F98-C1EA-428d-A78A-D1F5659CBA93}"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\ClassicStartMenu]
"{B4FB3F98-C1EA-428d-A78A-D1F5659CBA93}"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\NewStartPanel]
"{B4FB3F98-C1EA-428d-A78A-D1F5659CBA93}"=dword:00000001

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\HideDesktopIcons\ClassicStartMenu]
"{B4FB3F98-C1EA-428d-A78A-D1F5659CBA93}"=dword:00000001
===========================================
2. Save the txt file and rename to xxx.reg. Then double click xxx.reg to import the registry key.