Expose hiding desktop items

Hi, I am a little puzzled with Expose. I have used it now for a while to show my desktop behind multiple widows and a colleague of mine who just started using a mac and brought me an issue that I have never seen before. When he engages expose, it wipes his desktop items off screen so that you can't see them. Both Drive icons and document icons are swept off. I have a feeling that there is an obvious solution, however, I can't find it. He is running the latest version of OSX.
Any ideas?

The only two things I can think of:
1) Possibly he is going into Spaces? That is the only way I can imagine the desktop items being hidden.
2) He is using Simple Finder.

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Hey sunnyday7!
Here is an article that can help you address this issue:
OS X: How to quit an unresponsive application using Force Quit
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3411
Additional Information
OS X automatically relaunches the Finder when it is quit. If the Finder is unresponsive, use Force Quit to relaunch it. Select Finder in the Force Quit Window or Dock, then click Relaunch.
Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities. Have a good one!
-Braden

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According to wikipedia the .DS_Store files on Mac OS X contain the metadata for icon position and view settings. If the file permissions for the Desktop .DS_Store file were incorrect then one could assume that the icon position and view settings aren't being saved.
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ls -ld /Users/<<UserName>>/Desktop/.DS_Store
replacing <<UserName>> with the short name of your user account (name as viewed in the finder sidebar)
On my system I get the following permissions readout
-rw-------@
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J.C
Message was edited by: J.C

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Attachments:
skype_setup2.png ‏135 KB

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Sometimes, starting up in SafeBoot (shift key held after start tone, login window appears
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And after that, or any other minor repairs done in SafeBoot, the computer gets a normal
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All those privileges...
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ls -a ~/Desktop
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To have used a utility such as AppZapper to remove the newer QuickTime version
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Expose hiding desktop items

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