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 icons in the start menu and desktop task bar have all been replaced by the generic white icons.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
    2016-12-16T23:14:06+00:00

    I'm sorry but I tried this and it did not work. Thanks anyway.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-12-18T19:29:54+00:00

    Thanks to Jurgens and to all the wonderful people that have contributed to this topic. The sad reality is that like everyone else, my icons were fine until Microsoft performed an update, and then they were blanked out. I'm unclear why I have to spend hours of effort attempting to fix Microsoft's poor code, with the possible result that I make matters worse. Microsoft, fix this.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-12-18T22:13:09+00:00

    I went to control panel/Display/ make text and other items larger or smaller. Then all I did was change the font size from Medium to smaller.  The icons reappeared.  Office I think reads the icon file again when you change the font size.. Anyway it worked for me. I have a PC with Win 7

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-01-05T03:58:15+00:00

    I also had this problem (using Win10 and Office2016) and none of the above solutions fixed it for me, but I have found a very simple solution:

    1. Unpin all of the Office applications for which this is an issue from the task bar.
    2. In Windows Explorer navigate to the Office folder (for me this is Program Files (x86) > Microsoft Office > Office16)
    3. For each of the application .exe files you need:
    • 3.1 Right click on the .exe file
    • 3.2 Select Send To > Desktop (create shortcut)
    1. When all of the applications shortcuts are on your desktop, rename them if you want (by default they will all be in the form "APPLICATION.EXE - Shortcut"), for example, I renamed "WINWORD.EXE - Shortcut" as "Word".
    2. Drag each shortcut to the task bar and drop it on
    3. The task bar item thumbnail should then keep the correct icon
    4. You can then delete the shortcuts from the desktop without losing the task bar thumbnails.

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