Desktop Icons covered by default icon

terrymold · 14 Nov 2012

Hi

The other day, after running OK for several months, Windows 7 failed to start. In the end I did a clean install again. Everything is now working again, except for one niggling little problem.

All the icons on the desktop, with the exception of the rubbish bin, is overlaid with what I would call the "Default Icon". The icon you would see if a program didn't have it's own icon? Under most of the icons, you can actually see parts of the "propper" icon sticking out from the edges.

Quite a lot of "help" pages suggest that that the IconCache file might be at fault. But I have tried many things to resolve this problem, but so far it just will not go away.

So any help or advice will be greatly appreciated.

Terry

Brink · 14 Nov 2012

Hello Terry, and welcome to Seven Forums.

It sounds like it's the shortcut arrow overlay on the icon that has been messed up. Using OPTION ONE in the tutorial below to restore the default arrow should fix this for you.

Shortcut Arrow - Change, Remove, or Restore

Hope this helps, :)
Shawn

terrymold · 14 Nov 2012

Hi Shawn

Thanks very much for your quick response. That particular program was the very one that I had, a few days ago, used to remove those ugly arrows from the icons.

So selecting either the first otion or the second option does actually remove the overlay. I suspect that the clear overlay within the program has been corrupted somewhat.

Anyway, using the "light arrow" option, I can now see my icons again. So this begs another question! Do you know of another program which will remove these arrows, while still leaving the icon visible?

Thanks again Shawn

indianacarnie · 14 Nov 2012

Back when I still used shortcuts this is how I did it. Hope this helps you. Yes I know it says Vista but it works on 7 too.

It looks like thats the one you already tried. I've used this one also and it does the job. Good stuff here too if you haven't already been here. I usually don't recommend tweakers but I do trust these people.

Ultimate Windows Tweaker, a TweakUI for Windows 7 & Vista

Brink · 15 Nov 2012

terrymold said:

Hi Shawn

Thanks very much for your quick response. That particular program was the very one that I had, a few days ago, used to remove those ugly arrows from the icons.

So selecting either the first otion or the second option does actually remove the overlay. I suspect that the clear overlay within the program has been corrupted somewhat.

Anyway, using the "light arrow" option, I can now see my icons again. So this begs another question! Do you know of another program which will remove these arrows, while still leaving the icon visible?

Thanks again Shawn

Does this still happen when you select the "No Arrow" option and apply it again?

If so, then you could give OPTION THREE a try to use that blank icon if you like.

Shortcut Arrow - Change, Remove, or Restore

AddRAM · 15 Nov 2012

Vista Visual Master

http://download.cnet.com/Vista-Visua...-10810026.html

terrymold · 15 Nov 2012

Hi everyone

First of all, thank you all for your input to this problem.

[Shawn] Yes, I did set it to each option and then logged off and back on again. It didn't really make any difference.

[indianscarnie] I next tried the Ultimate Windows Tweaker, but while this application seems to have a useful set of tweaks, it wasn't any good at removing the arrows from icons. When I selected that option, the icons were covered with a plain white icon. I thought that's just as bad as the original problem! then after about 30 seconds or less, the icons were restored back to how the were when I selected this option. I tried it several time with exactly the same result.

[AddRAM] I downloaded the application Vista Visual Master and guess what? It actually worked. Now my desktop icons are arrow free at last.

So thanks everyone again and I hope my testing will be of benefit to somebody?

Terry