Yes, I upgraded from Linux Mint 18.1 Serena to 18.2 Sonya without any problem following Clem’s instruction ‘How to upgrade to Linux Mint 18.2‘. No, my system wasn’t broken nor I’m a latest update freak. My desktop was getting slow day by day to the point when you start thinking about a clean installation. Yep, I do a lot of experiment and has like 3469 packages installed. Anyway I went ahead and upgraded to Linux Mint Cinnamon 18.2 ‘Sonya’ and truthfully it feels like a fresh air for breath!
Only I was missing desktop icons and right-clicking on desktop was not doing anything, no context menu. Googled a bit a found few other people having trouble with desktop background which is working perfectly here on my desktop. I found on Launchpad Bug Report for Linux Mint (Bug #1650977) that people have had this problem on 18.0, 18.1 and it is solved/fixed on 18.2. This is where I found the hint to solution. And more helping hint that helped me solving this is from mint forum ‘18.1 Disappearing Desktop Icons‘.
I was introduced to a file/app named nemo-desktop at /usr/bin/ and shortcut at /usr/share/applications/nemo-autostart.desktop
While you’re reading it, simply browse to /usr/bin/ and look for a file named nemo-desktop and double click on it. Now check your desktop. Yep! Desktop icons are back, so is the desktop context menu.
The trick is, simply add this nemo-desktop to your startup applications, probably with 2 seconds delay.
Here is how:
Click on start menu or press Command (⌘)/Windows key and type Startup and select ‘Startup Applications‘. 
Select ‘Add’>’Custom Command’. A new popup window will open named ‘Add Startup Program‘. In the ‘Name‘ field give it whatever name you want it to be named, then for the ‘Command‘ filed, instead click on the ‘Browse‘ button on the right. Browse to /usr/bin/nemo-desktop and select it and click ‘Open‘ at the bottom of the ‘Select command‘ window.
If you wish, fill out the ‘Comment‘ field for your reference, then for a 2 second delay, click the ‘+‘ button at the right of ‘Startup delay‘ field.
And finally click ‘Add‘. Now you’re good to go and next time you reboot, your desktop icons won’t be missing anymore.
And yes, since you already know how to add startup applications, I could simply say, add /usr/bin/nemo-desktop to your startup applications to fix the missing desktop icons on your Linux Mint 18.2 Sonya; and perhaps for Linux Mint 18.0 Sarah and Linux Mint 18.1 Serena too!
Saidul Hassan