The icons on the desktop are just shortcuts for running the programs. The
programs themselves are stored elsewhere.

Click the Start button, then Programs (or All Program), and see if Microsoft
Office is listed. Word and Excel would be inside the Microsoft Office
folder. If they're there, then right-click Microsoft Office in the Programs
list, and choose Open. Once done, you can now copy the shortcuts for Word
and Excel to the to the desktop (or Quick Launch bar). Just make sure you
copy rather than move, so that you have a convenient fallback if they
accidentally get deleted again.

--
Herb Tyson MS MVP
Please respond in the newsgroups so everyone can follow along.
http://www.herbtyson.com
"Laura low-tech" Laura wrote in message
...
I just updated my Microsoft Office to the 2003 version. After updating, I
noticed that the MS Excel and MS Word icons disappeared from the desktop!
I
have no idea why this is happening. I do know that my version of Word was
2000 and I have a Windows XP operating system. I can't remember what
version
of Excel I originally had. What do I do to get these programs back? Is
there a way? And if not, what is the cheapest way of purchasing them if
that's what it amounts to.
I also did the search files and folders on my hard drive and they weren't
found there either.