Icons missing their specialized image

Anonymous
2010-02-09T23:59:53+00:00

Some of the shortcuts on my desktop and start menu are missing their images. For example I have the Windows Live icon that is pinned to the taskbar but it is showing the default MS OS image (the one when the OS does not reconize the file the shortcut targets). Six out of 8 icons on my desktop are missing their images. The shortcuts work fine. No problems. The OS is up to date as far as downloads are concerned.

I turned off my computer Friday (2/5) and turned it on Sunday 2/7 and the icons were messed up. Like I said not all the icons are messed up. It is like the images the shortcuts pointed to were deleted somehow.

I would appreciate your help.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Accessibility

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2010-02-10T21:58:26+00:00

Hi tagger1961,

Have you recently installed or uninstalled any software or hardware?

I would suggest you to rebuild the icon cache and check if the issue is resolved.

Rebuilding the Icon Cache Database:

1.  Close all folder windows that are currently open.

2.  Launch Task Manager using the CTRL+SHIFT+ESC key sequence, or by running taskmgr.exe.

3.  In the Process tab, right-click on the Explorer.exe process and select End Process.

4.  Click the End process button when asked for confirmation.

5.  From the File menu of Task Manager, select New Task (Run…)

6.  Type CMD.EXE, and click OK

7.   In the Command Prompt window, type the commands one by one and press ENTER after each command:

CD /d %userprofile%\AppData\Local

DEL IconCache.db /a

EXIT

8.  In Task Manager, click File, select New Task (Run…)

9.  Type EXPLORER.EXE, and click OK.

If the issue still persist, I would suggest you to create a new user account and check.

To create a user account:

1.      To open User Accounts, click the Start button, click Control Panel, click User Accounts and Family Safety, and then click User Accounts.

2.      Click Manage another account. If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

3.      Click Create a new account.

4.      Type the name you want to give the user account, click an account type, and then click Create Account.

For further information, visit the below mentioned link:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/Windows7/Create-a-user-account

If the issue is solved in new user account, you may have corrupted profile.

Below is the link  to troulbleshoot a corrupted profile, you can follow the steps mentioned in the link.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/Windows7/Fix-a-corrupted-user-profile

 Hope this information helped!

 Thanks and regards,

 Fouzan – Microsoft support.

 Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum 

 http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-%20US/answersfeedback/threads and let 

 us know what you think.

Was this answer helpful?

600+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments

90 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2010-09-30T23:52:57+00:00

    None of these options worked for me :(

    Was this answer helpful?

    8 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2010-03-22T08:33:24+00:00

    wow thanks a lot for the above advice, this was bugging me for ages, I tried a couple of methods but this one seemed to be the only one that fixed my missing icons images, cheers !

    Was this answer helpful?

    6 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2010-10-29T07:09:51+00:00

     

     

    7.    In the Command Prompt window, type the commands one by one and press ENTER after each command:

     

    CD /d %userprofile%\AppData\Local

    OK this part did not work for me.  On my machine it falls over on the first part of this this i.e. " CD /d %userprofile%".

    I had to type this to get it to work "CD c:\users%userprofile%\appdata\local"

    Having got to the correct directory the fix did work so thanks for that, but I thought it worth mentioning that some folks may not be getting this to work because of the path.

    Was this answer helpful?

    4 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2010-05-03T02:22:46+00:00

    Fourzan,

    I was having the same problem as tagger1961 described and deleting the icon cache and rebuilding it DID work! Thanks a lot, Microsoft should look into it though because this is happening to me every few weeks, some of the icons (not all of them, just one or two) loose their specialized images for no reason.

    Was this answer helpful?

    2 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments