shortcut icons corrupt

Hi all,
back in the ol' W7 forum again after having moved to W10 on my main desktop.
Anyway, the problem on my W7 comp which my grand daughter uses is I have installed games in a folder on the secondary drive and put shortcuts of the application to the desktop. Dunno why, what or how but every now and then some shortcuts becomes corrupt, show an icon like the one here and she cannot start the games. All I have to do is delete that icon and take another shortcut from the application in the installation folder and back in business. I have a suspicion it may be associated with windows updating but not being on the computer that is a wild guess at best. Any clues from the gurus??

Hi lffoar,

Does this also happen in Safe Mode?

Have you tried setting up a new user account and seeing if the problem still persists? If it doesn't, then the previous user account is corrupted.

This could possibly have something to do with either some software or application that you have installed causing a conflict with the IconCache.db file. You might need to delete the IconCache.db file, go into Task Manager and end the process for explorer.exe. Then again in Task Manager open a new task for explorer.exe.

Also, see if this is of any use => Resolve an issue where all Windows 7 desktop icons.

I hope this helps!

Thanks for your input fellers

Did a disk check and an SFC scan...all good.
Deleted icon cache and explorer.exe.
Ran full scan with Malwarebytes, Super Anti Spyware, Adware cleaner, Avast, Eset on-line, JRT, Rkill......All clear


If/when it happens again I'll check in safe mode before I replace the icon/s.
Ditto new account.
Now, sit back and wait to see if it happens again.

Hi lffoar, I am glad the issue is resolved, at least for now!