Devices and Printers Icons won't update

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I'm also finding that the devices that aren't updating to the nice icons don't even have a folder and info in C:\Users\MyUserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Device Metadata\dmrccache\en-us

Really annoying and no one in the world seems to know why this happens or how to fix it.

In Devices and Printers,
Right-click on the Computer icon and select Device installation settings

Is Yes (Download automatically) selected ?
If not, select it and see if that helps.

Thanks David, yes that's enabled by default.

I don't know if this will help, but you could rebuild the icon cache to see ...
Icon Cache - Rebuild

DavidE said:

I don't know if this will help, but you could rebuild the icon cache to see ...
Icon Cache - Rebuild

Thanks again David, I've already tried that and no luck.

Again, when installing (and reinstalling) drivers to try and get this feature to work the folders simply aren't created in: C:\Users\MyUserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Device Metadata\dmrccache\en-us for reasons unknown.

I've also tried uninstalling a device from device manager and then restarting, no luck.

I managed to get my keyboard icon to appear after uninstalling the two HID Keyboard devices from device manager and a number of HID's. Also reinstalled the Logitech setpoint software.

Last icon to get working is for my Dell U3011 it just wont appear no matter what I do.

I've uninstalled the monitor from device manager several times and restarted and reinstalled the driver from both win update and the the driver from Dell's website but the icon remains the same.


The problem is that the unique hardware ID folder and files are not created in: C:\Users\MyUserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Device Metadata\dmrccache\en-us

I can't think why this would work sometimes and not others.

It seems others have this issue so you're not alone, here is one SF thread about it.
Devices and Printers icons (Device Stage)

If you only have 1 problem icon left, you might consider setting a custom icon.
Here is a tutorial.
Devices and Printers - Change Device Icons with Custom Icons

Here is an interesting article.
Admiring Windows 7’s high-resolution device icons | istartedsomething
The author states you can download the metadata package from Microsoft’s Metadata servers.
There is a link for 1 specific icon, but i don't think there is a link for an "icon catalog" on Microsoft’s Metadata servers.
There are many more links in posts in the article.
It seems you have to use the device ID to find the metadata package, and hopefully the device manufacturer created the icon/package.

When you have everything the way you want, you might want to backup all your icon metadata.
Then if you re-install again you could use that data.

DavidE said:

It seems others have this issue so you're not alone, here is one SF thread about it.
Devices and Printers icons (Device Stage)

If you only have 1 problem icon left, you might consider setting a custom icon.
Here is a tutorial.
Devices and Printers - Change Device Icons with Custom Icons

Here is an interesting article.
Admiring Windows 7’s high-resolution device icons | istartedsomething
The author states you can download the metadata package from Microsoft’s Metadata servers.
There is a link for 1 specific icon, but i don't think there is a link for an "icon catalog" on Microsoft’s Metadata servers.
There are many more links in posts in the article.
It seems you have to use the device ID to find the metadata package, and hopefully the device manufacturer created the icon/package.

When you have everything the way you want, you might want to backup all your icon metadata.
Then if you re-install again you could use that data.

Sadly my Dell U3011 monitor doesn't have a GUID and even if it did, I doubt I could just punch it into that site and get the icon.
I couldn't find any archive of meta packages at all, only articles on how devs should make their drivers to use the service.

I don't know how to make Icons and even if I did, the folders and files aren't created when I use that wizard program.

I think I'm just going to have to live with a broken feature.

What frustrates me the most is that it used to work without me having to do anything but now it doesn't.

Thanks for your help David.

I'm not going to mark this as solved (because it is still doesn't work properly via Windows) but I did manage to get my monitor & keyboard icons to appear.

I plugged in my old SSD OS drive and sure enough, there were the ID fodlers in: C:\Users\MyUserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Device Metadata\dmrccache\en-us

I copied the "Device Metadata" folder to replace mine and replaced every file and folder when prompted.
Opened Devices and Printers and Boom, there they were.

At first I tried just copying the missing device folders i.e. the ones with the long string of numbers and letters but it didn't work. Infact all the icons went back to the generic ones.

I'm pretty sure you need to copy the "dmrc.idx" as well as the UID folders and their contents but it's just easier to replace the "Device Metadata" folder and do it all in one hit.

I realise that a new Windows will be out soon but it would still be nice for us oldies to have this working.