Think he deleted the .exe, not the icon.
What build of 7, and what bit version are you running?
Another way , if you have any restore points, is to look in the Shadow Copy with the free Shadow Explorer - find explorer.exe and export a copy.
Suggest you get the 0.4 rather than the 0.5 beta.
ShadowExplorer.com - Downloads Link Removed due to 404 Error