Hi, With a new user, by default /desktop-icons/style is not set in xfconf, but icons are active on desktop, and in xfdesktop-settings / Icons, "icon type" show "None". After a switch to "File/launcher icons", /desktop-icons/style is initialized. Maybe /desktop-icons/style should be set to 2 by default ?
Fixed in master: commit 22bcf8081c01f922a7b12d9f4e33af77a73019b4 Author: Jannis Pohlmann <jannis@xfce.org> Date: Sat Nov 13 13:30:07 2010 +0100 Use the right icon style in the desktop settings by default(bug #6798). When running xfdesktop for the first time, the /desktop-icons/style will be undefined. This caused the desktop settings dialog to always show 'None' as the icon style even though xfdesktop uses file icons / window icons by default (depending on whether file icons are built in). So we now follow that behaviour in the desktop settings dialog.
*** Bug 6450 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***