Windows 7: Desktop icons all generic except COmputer Network Control Panel

All the Desktop icons on my Win 7 Pro X64 system have changed to generic icons:





I've tried all the usual fixes:

1. System Restore to earlier date
2. Delete Iconcache.db
3. Change Icon size then put it back

Any other ideas?

I can do an Acronis restore to yesterday but I would like to fix this without doing that if possible.

My question is, where are the desktop icons displayed from?

This is my entire desktop:

I ran the LNK.reg fix and the problem is resolved. Very strange. I wish I had taken the time to figure out what was associated with .lnk before fixing it.

Hello Rich,

It looks as if something had changed the default shortcut arrow overlay icon. This could have happened if the IsShortcut registry entry was deleted in LNK (shortcuts) to try and remove the shortcut arrow using the old now improper XP method.

This also gets reset by the lnk.reg fix to the default shortcut arrow.

That must have been it. Makes you wonder how it gets messed up as I didn't do anything that I'm aware of that could have affected it. No software installation or removal, though I did apply one Windows Update.

I just zapped myself again by applying the Remove_Shortcut_Arrow.reg without copying the Blank.ico to the \Windows directory first (it was already unblocked). Undid it by applying the .lnk fix again then followed the instructions and this time got it right, no more ugly arrows on shortcuts.

There's no telling what may have caused it, but I'm happy to hear that you got it sorted.

Those last small windows updates (KB2603229) and (KB2607576) messed all my custom icons up also as they placed back the default shell32.dll overwriting my custom ones.
I had to re replace them again to get my icons back.

Danny

Me to