Icons not showing up

Some icons aren't showing up. I've attached a screenshot so you all can see. I'm not sure why it's happening and I was hoping someone would have a solution for this. It happens anywhere I place the program(i.e. desktop, taskbar, start menu). The one that aren't showed up I've highlighted with red over on the left side of the screen.

Did you check the paths and everything?
Never had that problem...

Did you right click the desktop and select view, show desktop icons?

Not sure if this is exactly what fixed it but I did this and now they seem to be showing:

Right-Click on them > Properties > Compatability Tab > Click the option at the bottom under Privilege Level that says "Run this program as an administrator".

Ever since doing that for those programs the icons have stayed. Albeit with that little shield looking thing as well.

Those missing icons were bugging the hell out of me ever since Windows 7 7100 RC1 up to Windows 7 RTM x64, which I am using now.

It seems that the fix you mentioned by having the shortcut/program Run as Administrator fixes it.

I just wonder why that fixes it? Was it intentional or a bug?

The same issue is when I open Windows Explorer and I click on a program (.EXE file). The icon right next to "Open" at the top toolbar is the default icon if it couldn't find the program, like the one you see in the screenshot above.

I hope this gets fixed in Service Pack 1 or another Windows 7 update.

High I just registered because I have this same problem but the fix isn't working, doesn't seem like it's a widespread problem like the wireless issues.

Anyone have a different solution, it happened after I installed a bunch of programs and pinned some of them on the taskbar, once I restarted some programs didnt have their icons.

I found the answer in this forum. Here's a slightly quicker version of the instructions.

1. Press Ctrl-Shift-Escape to get the task manager.
2. In the Processes tab, click on explorer.exe and click End Process. You'll get a confirmation dialog. Click "End Process" to confirm.
3. From the File menu (still in the task manager), choose New Task (Run...).
4. Copy/paste/enter the following command in the run box:
   Code:

   cmd /c del %userprofile%\AppData\Local\IconCache.db /a

5. Open the Run box again with File --> New Task (Run...). This time, enter this command:
   Code:

   explorer.exe

6. All should be okay now. Open the Start Menu and confirm that your icons are fixed now.

Forget icons and use RocketDock, they use .png's which are much better looking and the dock works perfectly well w/7

Alex Quinn said:

I found the answer in this forum. Here's a slightly quicker version of the instructions.

1. Press Ctrl-Shift-Escape to get the task manager.
2. In the Processes tab, click on explorer.exe and click End Process. You'll get a confirmation dialog. Click "End Process" to confirm.
3. From the File menu (still in the task manager), choose New Task (Run...).
4. Copy/paste/enter the following command in the run box:
   Code:

   cmd /c del %userprofile%\AppData\Local\IconCache.db /a

5. Open the Run box again with File --> New Task (Run...). This time, enter this command:
   Code:

   explorer.exe

6. All should be okay now. Open the Start Menu and confirm that your icons are fixed now.

Click to expand...

Sorry for the necro, but I went through 3 pages of Google searching trying to fix this.. and nobody in the thread confirmed it worked so I almost shrugged it off.

Well, it did! This is the fix, fellow google searchers. Enjoy~

Wow. Its still doing this in the final version of Win7. Hope this gets fixed in SP1. BTW its doing this for me on Semagic for Livejournal and Pidgin. Did this fix and BAM....flawless. Going to scrip this so if I have to do this in the future its a single button option. Geesh. Thanks guys.

Howdy-

New to the site and also wanted to confirm that this did indeed fix my issue also.

Thanks much!

Celeras said:

Alex Quinn said:

I found the answer in this forum. Here's a slightly quicker version of the instructions.

1. Press Ctrl-Shift-Escape to get the task manager.
2. In the Processes tab, click on explorer.exe and click End Process. You'll get a confirmation dialog. Click "End Process" to confirm.
3. From the File menu (still in the task manager), choose New Task (Run...).
4. Copy/paste/enter the following command in the run box:
   Code:

   cmd /c del %userprofile%\AppData\Local\IconCache.db /a

5. Open the Run box again with File --> New Task (Run...). This time, enter this command:
   Code:

   explorer.exe

6. All should be okay now. Open the Start Menu and confirm that your icons are fixed now.

Click to expand...

Sorry for the necro, but I went through 3 pages of Google searching trying to fix this.. and nobody in the thread confirmed it worked so I almost shrugged it off.

Well, it did! This is the fix, fellow google searchers. Enjoy~

Click to expand...

Thank you

I've just bought a new unit & switched to Windows 7 (64bits) from good old XP, and this icon thing (among many, many others) has been bugging me all day (how am i supposed to start the program I want from the taskbar if all icons look the same??).
So, just to say that it worked for me, and it's like a bright light at the end of an annoying tunnel!
Cheers Celeras!!
honeybun

CCleaner will reset the icons;



Regards....Mike Connor

Fixed

Not enough people give feedback to say when something has worked. Well it has!

Fixed! Thanks guys

This fix worked! read on.

It worked!!!
Our family has 6 accounts on a Dell with Windows 7. Mine was the only account that had the problem of the icons not working. On top of that, I could not start Task Manager, or execute any commands in the start menu!

Here's how I worked around the problem.
1. switch and log on to another account that has no icon problems.
2. start Task Manager (ctrl-alt-del)
3. hit button "show processes from all users"
4. delete "explorer.exe" from the problem account
5. start a command window (type "cmd" in the start menu bottom)
6. copy and paste the command
cmd /c del %userprofile%\AppData\Local\IconCache.db /a7. force log off of the problem account (either from your current account or by going back to it)
8. switch and log back on the problem account. All should be fine now!!!

Valkenwold.

worked like a charm

Confirmed that this fix works. I've had my laptop less than a week. Icons for newly installed programs and originally installed programs were disappearing from the task bar and start menu. Doing the "change icon" thing said it couldn't find them in the program files (they were in the x86 stuff) and even browsing and selecting the icon didn't change it.

Doing the fix below after pointing the icons to the right path fixed it perfectly!

Thanks!

Alex Quinn said:

I found the answer in this forum. Here's a slightly quicker version of the instructions.

1. Press Ctrl-Shift-Escape to get the task manager.
2. In the Processes tab, click on explorer.exe and click End Process. You'll get a confirmation dialog. Click "End Process" to confirm.
3. From the File menu (still in the task manager), choose New Task (Run...).
4. Copy/paste/enter the following command in the run box:
   Code:

   cmd /c del %userprofile%\AppData\Local\IconCache.db /a

5. Open the Run box again with File --> New Task (Run...). This time, enter this command:
   Code:

   explorer.exe

6. All should be okay now. Open the Start Menu and confirm that your icons are fixed now.

Click to expand...

Error/bug still exist - Solution provided does fixes it

Amazing this error/bug still exists in the latests Win 7 64 bit with all the latest update
Interestingly, the fix provided (through task manager) solves it.

Alex Quinn said:

I found the answer in this forum. Here's a slightly quicker version of the instructions.

1. Press Ctrl-Shift-Escape to get the task manager.
2. In the Processes tab, click on explorer.exe and click End Process. You'll get a confirmation dialog. Click "End Process" to confirm.
3. From the File menu (still in the task manager), choose New Task (Run...).
4. Copy/paste/enter the following command in the run box:
   Code:

   cmd /c del %userprofile%\AppData\Local\IconCache.db /a

5. Open the Run box again with File --> New Task (Run...). This time, enter this command:
   Code:

   explorer.exe

6. All should be okay now. Open the Start Menu and confirm that your icons are fixed now.

Click to expand...

Genius ... works perfectly and solved the issue of (icons not showing for utorrent with windows 7)

Many thanks

Sorry for resurrecting an old thread, but I've had the same issue since I got this pc (HP) and it pops up with each reinstallation too. Tried all suggested fixes mentioned in this thread, along with continuously running CCleaner in hope of a sudden fix as well as TuneUp Utilities but so far - nothing. Icons are still broken. Please help.

Win 7 icons messed up - deleting iconcache does not work

Hi
I have spent all day on this one tried all kinds of advice (eg deleting iconcache.db, changing from 32 to 16 bit display and back etc....). Extremely frustrating! but I finally cracked it!!

Here was the problem: I think some over-zealous cleaner tool (TuneUpPortable ) trashed my Installer directory:

I had started to look at my file associations in the registry.
Options - File Associations was very helpful here with info about HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT and how the defaulticon is set for each type of file.

Well I found out that the microsoft word icons are not obtained from the actual WINWORD program but from this folder here:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.12\DefaultIcon
C:\Windows\Installer\{90120000-0030-0000-0000-0000000FF1CE}\wordicon.exe,13

So I had a look, and not only was the file wordicon.exe missing, the whole folder was gone! In fact my whole installer folder was looking pretty desolate

Luckily I have another computer with similar setup so I was able to copy across a whole bunch of folders that were missing. It is possible to guess what program uses which folder (eg I could see an icon used by excel or some files called pdfxxxx etc...) and if I had this same progam installed on my "broken" computer and the folder was missing, I just copied it across. At worst, you can check the registry like I did above for any that you dont find...

It Worked!! Heres the Office 2007 folders that should be in the is install folder (at least for me - the number may be some serial code or something) - seems like they all end in "OFFICE":

{90120000-00D0-0409-0000-0000000FF1CE}
{90120000-001C-0409-0000-0000000FF1CE}
{90120000-006E-0409-0000-0000000FF1CE}
{90120000-0020-0409-0000-0000000FF1CE}
{90120000-0030-0000-0000-0000000FF1CE}

And this was my Adobe Acrobat 9 program:
{AC76BA86-1033-F400-7761-000000000004}


Hope this helps someone
BJ