Office Icons are all missing/replaced by generic white icons

Anonymous

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 icons in the start menu and desktop task bar have all been replaced by the generic white icons.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

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Anonymous

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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123 additional answers

Anonymous

2010-10-23T01:55:27+00:00

I get these same (plain, white paper with illegible text) icons for any application with Office 2010. At first I wasn't sure if it was an issue with the install or something that changed with the version. The only way that worked for me to see the icons properly was to be logged in as a user (I'd previously been testing it out after the install while I was logged in as an administrator).
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Anonymous

2011-03-25T04:14:26+00:00

I just developed this problem after installing the latest MS update: one by one, all the icons have disappeared from the Start menu and the taskbar. I likewise believe this is related to Installer, which I understand is known to delete the folder the icons are in if it considers them to be remnants of another program.

This is a serious problem because I cannot locate my Office apps on the taskbar, which slows me down considerably. I cannot re-install Office because I got it through an EPP, which did not provide a CD. I cannot reinstall Windows 7 because Dell claims Microsoft is responsible for supporting Windows and Microsoft claims Dell is responsible as per their licensing agreement with Dell. Consumer caught in middle as usual.

Microsoft doesn't seem to be taking this seriously judging by the number of "0" helpful responses next to all the ppl asking about this issue. Problelm is, all these "little" glitches they are choosing to ignore add up and are compounding to make for a very unpleasant and time wasting Microsoft experience.
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Anonymous

2011-05-05T05:50:20+00:00

Has any one tried to reassociate the files?

Have you tried to manually uninstall and reinstall office completly?

Have you checked in new windows user account?
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