Got same icon problems after i upgraded from Opera 51 to Opera 52. Problems with refreshing desktop icon cache when starting Opera are not caused by hardware or OS on our machines. "Only" Opera is causing this. No other software. "Every" other application, browser, game, media... everything starts without refreshing icons on desktop. Only starting Opera makes desktop icons goes blank then restoring them when Opera loads.
Please do not advice customers to upgrade their windows or drivers. If Opera needs some kind of special hardware or software configuration to work properly, than you need to point at it at your official pages, so customers do not download browser if their machines are not matching them. Thank you for understanding.