Win 7 is forgetting (losing) icon images on short cuts...
- I've seen several posts on this.... you have a program... say adobe Acrobat.... the program has the correct icon... you pin it to the start menu or taskbar and it winds up with a generic windows icon...
Here is what I figured out...
I made new shortcuts to the programs... this failed..
I made new shotcuts by right clicking and picking
'new shortcut" that failed also...
The I decided to just point the program files(ie click change icon) to one of the generic windows dll's that have icons...
%SystemRoot%\system32\SHELL32.dll
This worked... note if you pinned icons you need to un-pin and re-pin for it to take effect...
I take it Win 7 is very picky about the exact format of the icons and it does not get along with some programs...
Not a total fix, but better than nothing...
All Replies
- I have had problems with Icon's on 7 too, they go from a nice looking icon to a smaller version with a clear box around it.
One was a default installed program and the other was a custom icon.
They worked fine for a few months then just changed. I can update the custom one and it looks fine for a few days then goes back to the boxed version. - Mostly, the icon issue is caused by cache corrupted issue. If any icon problem is encoutnered, please try to take the following steps to troubleshoot the problem.
Rebuild the Icon Cache
==================
1. Boot the computer into Safe Mode.
2. Launch Task Manager using the CTRL+SHIFT+ESC.
3. In the Process tab, right-click on the Explorer.exe process and select End Process.
4. From the File menu of Task Manager, select New Task (Run…)
5. Type CMD.EXE and press Enter.
6. In the Command Prompt window, run the commands one by one:
CD /d %userprofile%\AppData\Local
DEL IconCache.db /a
7. In Task Manager, click File, select New Task (Run…)
8. Type EXPLORER.EXE and press Enter.
9. Restart the computer into Normal Mode.
I've seen several posts on this.... you have a program... say adobe Acrobat.... the program has the correct icon... you pin it to the start menu or taskbar and it winds up with a generic windows icon...
Here is what I figured out...
I made new shortcuts to the programs... this failed..
I made new shotcuts by right clicking and picking
'new shortcut" that failed also...
The problem you describe often comes about from making a shortcut to a shortcut. It is also an issue with Vista. But it is easily solved. Find the actual location of the program's .exe file, then right-click that. You'll be offered the choices to copy, make a shortcut, or pin it to startmenu.
The easiest way to find the program.exe location is to right-click its shortcut then click Open File Location. You can also determine it from its Properties.- I just had this issue occur on both my HOme and Work PC's.
I tried these steps below but there is not an IconCache.db in that location or anywhere else on the hard drive that I can find?
Rebuild the Icon Cache
==================
1. Boot the computer into Safe Mode.
2. Launch Task Manager using the CTRL+SHIFT+ESC.
3. In the Process tab, right-click on the Explorer.exe process and select End Process.
4. From the File menu of Task Manager, select New Task (Run…)
5. Type CMD.EXE and press Enter.
6. In the Command Prompt window, run the commands one by one:
CD /d %userprofile%\AppData\Local
DEL IconCache.db /a - FILE NOT FOUND AT THIS STEP
