I have found the problem and solved it
It was a massive oversight. All the anger and cursing and swearing after reformatting and reinstalling the graphic driver created the same problem until I realise, every program I've started was on the 'other'monitor'.
Meaning, I have both DVI and HDMI cable running into the same monitor; iconless desktop was simply because I was on DVI and that everything was on the HDMI side. I had ruled this out as HDMI wasn't transmitting any signals and thought it faulty. All because of a screen setting that 'Display everything on Monitor 1 (HDMI)' while i was running DVI side....FML.
Hope someone would Learn From My Fail.
Thank you. I shall now proceed to cry in one corner.