Shortcut arrow icons gone after Windows 8.1

Anonymous
2014-04-26T20:52:31+00:00

Hey all,

I know it's something minor but ever since I have upgraded to Windows 8.1 I noticed that the little shortcut arrow icons that appear on shortcuts are gone. They appear again only if I hover my mouse over the shortcuts or if I refresh the desktop or folder where the shortcuts are in. However, after a reboot the issue comes up again and I have to redo the mentioned actions.

Things I have tried:

  1. I did a SFC/ scannow and it didn't find any integrity violations.
  2. I have tried 3 different nvidia WHQL drivers without any result.
  3. A reformat also didn't fix the issue.

My specs:

Windows 8.1 Pro 64x with Media Centre (Update 1 installed along with all latest updates)

i5 3570K CPU

nVidia GTX 660Ti with 335.23 WHQL driver (not OC'ed)

8 GB RAM and 1 TB HDD

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Accessibility

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-07-20T10:31:34+00:00

    It doesnt matter much i think since its happening in my pc too.I5-4570-HDD Baracuda 7200prm 160mbps average!

    Sometimes they load fine,sometimes they dont ( which mostly happens).The bug came with 8.1,F5 ALWAYS works. :(

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-07-17T19:31:40+00:00

    In this case the hard drive speed is what you need to focus on. So starting up opening the task manager and waiting for all the disk usage to drop down and then opening the folder you still have no icons. It would be helpful to diagnose the issue if you noted how long you wait, disk activity at the time and weather they load or not. I would load with clean boot to lower startup programs to see if it helps

    Hitting f5 refreshes the folder. If that works it means the have loaded.

    You can have a dual xenon quardcore processor but it the drive is 5400rpm the processor doesn't matter.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-07-17T19:06:13+00:00

    It is because your computer hasn't gotten around to loading all the icons for shortcuts. If you wait a second for your computer to load all the way. Watch the task manager for the disk to calm down then open the folder it should show up. After it finishes loading you can also hit f5 to refresh the file explorer and the shortcut will appear.

    I am guessing that those are in the end of the load order since you don't really need an icon to use the PC. It still lists it as a shortcut. It could be that the theme hasn't finished loading but it is not a bug. Maybe a faster PC would solve it, mine is slow so I can see it others might not be able to because it loads so fast :)

    Hope that info helps

    Waiting for a while after a boot doesn't bring the arrow icons back. I doubt that it has something to do with a slow pc since I have a quite a new PC (i5 3570K at 3.4 Ghz). Also, I didn't have this problem before Windows 8.1 so a bug seems much more likely.

    The thing is, that even without hitting F5 these arrow icons should just come up after a boot automatically.

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  4. Anonymous
    2014-07-17T18:56:22+00:00

    It is because your computer hasn't gotten around to loading all the icons for shortcuts. If you wait a second for your computer to load all the way. Watch the task manager for the disk to calm down then open the folder it should show up. After it finishes loading you can also hit f5 to refresh the file explorer and the shortcut will appear.

    I am guessing that those are in the end of the load order since you don't really need an icon to use the PC. It still lists it as a shortcut. It could be that the theme hasn't finished loading but it is not a bug. Maybe a faster PC would solve it, mine is slow so I can see it others might not be able to because it loads so fast :)

    Hope that info helps

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  5. Anonymous
    2014-07-17T18:24:35+00:00

    Well it happens here no matter what >.<

    I meant the option in the taskbar options (rightclick on tasbkar -> Properties). There's an option there to let Windows immediately bring you to the Desktop instead of the Start Metro interface after a boot.

    In case you already enabled that, then I guess the bug is really random.

    Isn't there anyone from Microsoft who's trying to reproduce this?

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