Windows 7: Fix Windows 7 Random Changing Icons

JMH · 15 Nov 2010

Quote:

Microsoft is providing users with a fix designed to help them deal with problems related to icons changing randomly on their computer.

According to the Redmond company, this issue can affect Windows 7, but also older releases of Windows, such as Windows Vista and Windows XP.

The software giant explained that the problem is caused by incorrect updates of the icon cache.

“Some icons in the following locations are randomly changed to other icons on a computer that is running Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7: My Computer, Windows Explorer, Desktop and Quick Launch bar,” Microsoft noted.

Microsoft has provided an automated Fix IT solution for the issue described above. Users that are affected by this particular problem need to navigate to KB 2396571 and run the Fix It, in order to have icons no longer being altered randomly.

Do-it-your-selvers can of course implement the fix manually. And the Redmond company has made sure to provide the necessary steps for users to do so.

Fix Windows 7 Random Changing Icons - Softpedia

FerchogtX · 15 Nov 2010

Well... this is mostly like the "Icon rebuild fix" posted in the forums a while ago... will this be ncluded in SP1?

Thanks for the in info.

See ya!!!

Lee · 16 Nov 2010

Thanks JMH.

FerchogtX, been testing the beta for quite a while, and it is not (at least yet) included.

Airbot · 16 Nov 2010

This is weird that they act like it was a new fix. This registry edit's been around since the XP days. If you google Max Cached Icons, you can see how old some of the entries are. Even one from MS in 2007 -

Icons randomly change to different icons

The manual change from the same page in the OP's article is:

Information

To fix this problem, follow these steps:

Close all open windows if a Close Open Programs Interaction dialog box is displayed.
Verify the Max Cached Icons registry value that locates in the following registry subkey equals to 2000: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
Delete IconCache.db that locates in the following path:

Windows XP

%userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data
Windows Vista or Windows 7

%userprofile%\AppData\Local

Not clear on how high the max value is allowed, some say 100 to 4096, some say all the way up to 8192. Not even sure if setting it to 2000 (2MB) is correct. My icon cache in Windows 7 x64 is already at 4882 on it's own already. So I would think setting it to 2000 would restrict it even smaller. The string won't be there in under Explorer, you have to make a new string - Max Cached Icons (with the spaces) and enter the value you want.

FerchogtX · 17 Nov 2010

Quote: Originally Posted by Lee

Thanks JMH.

FerchogtX, been testing the beta for quite a while, and it is not (at least yet) included.

I knew it... it was too old (since XP days as far as I remember) and was never released as a fix XD... fortunately I don't have shuch problems often...

Good they realized that this was nessesary though :P

See ya!!!

Windows 7: Fix Windows 7 Random Changing Icons

Fix Windows 7 Random Changing Icons problems?