Icons missing their specialized image

Anonymous

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.

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Anonymous

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.

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90 additional answers

Anonymous

2018-06-11T19:44:23+00:00

I was stumped by this for several months. My office PC was upgraded from Windows 7 Enterprise to Windows 10 Enterprise, and when my C: drive files and folders were copied over to the new PC, the special icons that showed in the company shortcut links on the desktop disappeared.

The desktop shortcut links themselves were still there, and functional, but the links just showed generic blank links, missing the special iconography that is usually present.

The answer is in this huge thread-- it's the answer by "Mrs. Fish" in 2016-- if you skip to the 9th page of responses, another poster also cites this answer and it works---

In Windows 10, go to the search box, type "display" and the first search result returned "Change Display Settings (system settings)" is what you want. Open the Settings App, choose Display from the left side options, and under the brightness slider you'll see 'Scale and Layout' and under that you'll find a drop down menu for 'Change the size of text, apps, and other items'.

Choose a different size, (mine was set at 100%, so I chose "150% (Recommended)")

Then close settings and restart the PC. When you log back in, the desktop icons will show their correct icons instead of the generic link icons.
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Anonymous

2018-04-22T20:25:38+00:00

desktop shows no icons
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Anonymous

2017-11-17T23:25:20+00:00

7 years and 2 operating system later, this is still an ongoing and persistent problem - why doesn't Microsoft ever show any shame for ridiculous issues like this.
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Anonymous

2017-07-18T15:43:08+00:00
This worked for me too. Thanks

Explorer wouldn't restart for me for some reason. CTRL-ALT-DEL opens the login screen options in W7. I logged out and logged back in and icons were back.

For anyone who hasn't seen this, it may keep this issue from reoccurring:

This worked for me today when I had the same problem with random icons working for their shortcut launch but pictures where not correct,

The issue seems to stem from how Windows 7 handles the caching of icons. You need to increase the cache size and this should get rid of corruption:
1. Navigate to the following key in the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
1. Create a REG_SZ (string value) called "Max Cached Icons" (omit quotes but include the spaces)
2. The default value is way too low(500). Bump it to 4096 (4MB) or more, I do 8192(8MB).(edit: you won't actually see a default value as this will be a newly created string, I meant to say it is default to Windows)
3. Reboot and you should be good to go.
I found the solution from the user CrunchyChewie at

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/w7itproui/thread/d5efec0c-e967-4127-b217-15da34d7fb00

cheers!

Just wanted to bump this. Credit to Deiter33
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