White Boxes Appearing as Word, Excel, Powerpoint Icons

Shane 20 Reputation points
2026-08-12T22:20:49.15+00:00

I tried everything to make this work on my Win11 - assigning default apps etc. It did nothing. Just a blank white icon.

Then I found this on an external site for Word:

  1. Find this on the Registry - HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.12\DefaultIcon
  2. I modified the value on this item to - C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\Office16\wordicon.exe,13

And it worked! Suddenly the Word item appeared as an icon. Sadly the site does not explain how to do this for Excel and PowerPoint.

My question is this - how do I get this working for both Excel and Powerpoint? I've tried what I thought was the correct link for changing the icon, but I'm still getting the white icon on both of them.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows
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Answer accepted by question author
Ramesh Srinivasan 87,350 Reputation points Independent Advisor
2026-08-13T01:40:54.8466667+00:00

Hi,

For .xlsx, please check the following registry location:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.12\DefaultIcon

Set the (default) value data to:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Root\VFS\Windows\Installer\{90160000-000F-0000-1000-0000000FF1CE}\xlicons.exe,1

For .pptx, go to the following branch:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\PowerPoint.Show.12\DefaultIcon

Set the (default) value data to:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Root\VFS\Windows\Installer\{90160000-000F-0000-1000-0000000FF1CE}\pptico.exe,10

Exit the Registry Editor and restart Windows.

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