Office Icons are all missing/replaced by generic white icons

Anonymous
2010-08-03T08:01:12+00:00

For some reason all my office products (word, excel, outlook, access etc.) icons in the start menu and desktop task bar have all been replaced by the generic white icons.

I am unable to uninstall or repair this. I believe (from what I've read on the internet) that it is connected to the "C:\windows\installer" folder and the Office installer files.

Can this problem be solved without having to re-install windows ( as that is the only way I think its possible to be albe to reset the office suite).

Cheers,

Jurgens

Microsoft 365 and Office | Install, redeem, activate | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2011-09-24T16:39:18+00:00

I had the same issue as everyone here and I think I've FINALLY figured out a solution!

Go to c:/Program Files/Microsoft Office/Office 14

Right click on each program icon individually and unpin from BOTH your Taskbar and/or Start Menu. (e.g. EXCEL.EXE, MSACCESS.EXE, MSPUB.EXE, OUTLOOK.EXE, POWERPNT.EXE, WINWORD.EXE, etc.)

Then right click and select  "Pin to Start Menu" (not to Taskbar).

Do this for each program you want to eventually make it onto your Taskbar.

Now go to Start and then for each program (that should now show in start menu with the actual Microsoft Office icon), right click and select "Pin to Taskbar".

You can then Remove each one from the Start Menu if you wish by right clicking again and selecting "Remove from this List".

Your icons should now be back to their original format.

I've rebooted my system several times so far and the icons have remained.

Hopefully this will work for everyone else as well!

Good Luck!!!

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  1. Anonymous
    2018-04-10T15:03:42+00:00

    I fixed this to my own satisfaction myself. I know from long experirnce that it is easy to find where the office programs currently reside. Just search for say Winword.exe in File Manager. Right click on the Exe file found, select open folder where exe exists. When in folder holding Winword.exe, Right click on Winword.exe, select create shortcut. This wont create a shortcut in the currently selected folder but will ask if you want a shortcut on the Desktop. I selected on desktop which is what I wanted.

    The shortcut created appears on the deaktop with the proper icon for Word but with the added text - Shortcut. Did this for the rest of the Office programs.

    Not perfect but because of the large number of errors in Windows 10 I have had to put up with and the time taken to track down their real cause and a solution, if something works reasonably well for me I take it now.

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-04-10T10:02:51+00:00

    Same problem All white icons which do not respond / open the application

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  3. Anonymous
    2018-04-05T12:31:40+00:00

    can you resolve this problem

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  4. Anonymous
    2018-04-03T06:13:08+00:00

    I followed the steps but had to do a slight work-around wherein I unpinned the icons and then deleted them from the start menu, then created new shortcuts from the applications and Voila it worked! (Windows 7 Premium user)

    Thank you so much for sharing the answer to a question that quite frankly has been driving me more than a bit batty for the past several months. 

    PA

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