S2721HN, HDMI only partitally functions using HDMI

I bought a new Dell monitor S2721HN and experienced a problem.  It is an hdmi only input.  The problem is that when properly connected to the computer (a Dell XPS PC) using HDMI the desktop background (the theme) displays on the monitor but not the icons. The bottom bar of windows 10 displays with all the icons it has and I can open programs but the programs do not display on the monitor. I thought there was a compatibility problem since the PC is older so I connected the old existing Dell monitor up using HDMI and got the same result. All software including the graphics driver is up to date and the old monitor was disconnected from the system when I was using HDMI.  Any thoughts on what the problem is?