It's only a minor problem, but visible all day. I've installed PM v4.91.1746 on a brand new Samsung Galaxy Book4 laptop with Windows 11. It works fine, but I noticed this morning the PM icon is no longer showing on my desktop. I'm pretty sure it was there when I installed it. Is this a known problem? Using the button to change icon/pictogram ( I use the Dutch language version of PM) in the properties panel doesn't help. It gives the choice out of just one pictogram, the one that isn't showing.

Did you try to re-run the installer with the update option?

Just did that, but it seems to make no difference.

Honestly: I don't remember Pegasus Mail to ever create a desktop icon at all. But there's a workaround for creating one: While Pegasus Mail is running go to its taskbar icon (it doesn't need to be pinned to the taskbar), right click it and drag PM's icon to your desktop (German version below):

You can use 7-zip to extract the icon (at least you can in the English version). Perhaps using the extracted .ico in the shortcut would work. Note: the file named "5.ico" is the largest file so is the one I chose to test. It worked well.

@Michael: the icon missing on the desktop (I've had one for over 25 years, installed every time when PM is installed) IS the icon on the taskbar. When PM is opened it is missing on the taskbar too, so this method won't work for me.

@Brain Fluet: I have no idea what folder I'm looking at in your post. I seem to have nothing remotely like that on my laptop's installation of PM. The closest folder namewise would be PMAIL/Programs/RESOURCE, but it doesn't contain any icons.

OK, then here's another workaround: Pegasus Mail's ...\programs\ ... subdirectory (usually C:\PMAIL\Programs) contains a tool called SetPMDefault.exe, it's used by Pegasus Mail for setting it as the default email client via Tools > Options > Hyperlinks. It can also create a Start menu icon according to what MS demands of such a tool: You can run it on the commandline calling C:\PMAIL\Programs\SetPMDEefault.exe /ShowIcons which should create the Start menu icon. After it did you can drag and drop this shortcut from the menu to your desktop or - using a right mouse click - pin it to your taskbar. It will prompt you for admin access rights when launching.

@MarioW , I apologize for not being clear. My screenshot is a view of the Pegasus Mail downloaded installation file w32-491.exe opened with 7-zip, drilled down to .rsrc\1033\ICON

'C:\PMAIL\Programs\SetPMDEefault.exe' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

I've found an elaborate but working way around it. I converted an image of the PM logo to .ico format, but the program (despite claiming otherwise) did not convert the transparency information from the original .gif into the .ico file. I then captured the desktop background and put the image over it and then converted that into another icon. As long as I don't resize the icons you would never know.

The home made icon with background is in the top right corner, the image to the right of the logo with pink background shows the effect on my desktop.

It should be easier to get an icon on your desktop, but this will do for now.

@MarioW , I am curious what your installation and mailbox paths are. Your issues make me think installation is in a system-protected directory while the mailboxes are not. When you go to Help > About Pegasus Mail and click the Info button, what paths are shown for the following entries:
WINPMAIL.EXE directory:
Home mailbox location:
New mailbox location:

OK, sorry for the typo. The icon used is taken from WINPM-32.exe in all cases. But there's another possible issue: Icon's are cached by the system and don't necessarily update immediately. To work around this issue you may enforce a refresh by using the following commands in a batch file (such as IconRefresh.bat, any name does if only using the .bat extension, just double-click) for un- and reloading the (file) explorer instance of the desktop:

@echo off
taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe
CD /d %userprofile%\AppData\Local
DEL IconCache.db /a
Start explorer.exe

You might need admin elevation for it to work.

My thinking that perhaps the installation was in a protected location has been invalidated. I hope you will keep working towards figuring out what has caused the problem. Knowing that will help us help anyone who experiences it in the future.