Solved Black boxes over Desktop icons....

[Davy7RC]

My Win 7 has been working flawlessly for the past few days, but this morning after installing some updates(posted), after restarting I have these black boxes on my Desktop...tried clearing the thumbnail cache after Googling the problem but no dice...any ideas???

 

[Orbital Shark]

I don't have a solution but if you look at where the black boxes are situated you can see that they are exactly where the small 'shortcut' icon should be.

Added: I haven't installed the test update yet so i'm thinking that's the problem. You could try uninstalling it

 

[Davy7RC]

Thanks a bunch!!! That did it...Guess I'll leave it alone for now, even though I HATE those little arrows. BTW, what do you think of the program XdN Tweaker; is it safe to use??? That's what I used to get rid of them.

 

[Orbital Shark]

Glad it worked. I was gonna install that update but i won't now +rep for ya.

I've not heard of that but i'm very weary of using tweaking software on Windows 7. I might look into it

 

[andythecurefan]

any idea if you can tell us if you were running 64 bit or 32 bit? i haven't come across this problem yet on 64 bit and i have installed the test updates.

 

[Davy7RC]

I am currently using a 32-bit version of Win 7 RC....

 

[Orbital Shark]

It could be limitied to the x86 RC, i'll download now to try to confirm.

 

[Mark]

No problems here, downloaded all the test updated and so this morning and icons on the desktop are still the same, but I have removed the shortcut arrows on mine so that may make a difference.

 

[Orbital Shark]

I've just installed the update on my x86 and no black boxes. It could be something specific to certain GFX drivers as i'm no longer using the native WDDM Windows 7 driver for my Intel 945 Chipset.

Added: Something else to note is it's the second TEST update

 

[Airbot]

No problems here..I know some had problems happening with those test updates in the 7000 build too.

Yeah, there's two small updates, then an 8mb one after you download the first two.

 

[Zealox]

Its working fine here, on 64bit.

 

[TomW]

I've had the same problem for a month now. Using x64 Build 7100. GeForce 285 with latest drivers, etc. It seems like the problem started that way, (the shortcuts being gone), and even used a different way to get rid of arrows and all worked fine for a few days. Now the entire icon is gone. All executable shortcut icons are black boxes.

If I change resolution to 16 bit, icons come back until I reboot. Then I can change resolution back to 32 bit and all icons are there as normal... until I reboot and have to do the whole thing over again. I've done everything I can think of and it's driving me nuts!

 

[N7AS]

I am having the same problem with the black icons. There are about 6 or 7 that are ok and all the rest are black. I just upgraded last night and applied a fix to get rid of the arrows. Then got an automatic update and then is when the icons turned black. I can right click on the desktop and click refresh, and for a split second the icons appear under the black correctly. I even tried change icon and the properties window showed the icon correctly, but when I hit apply it went back to black.

 

[N7AS]

I went into the registry and deleted the key that removed the arrows from the desktop shortcuts.

This registry key actually worked to remove the arrows, but only until after an automatic update last night. Then the icons turned black. I wish I took a screenshot after the update.

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Icons” /v 29 /d %SystemRoot%\System32\shell32.dll,50 /f

Doing that after a reboot removed the black from the icons and put back the arrows. Well, when the icons were black, there were a few that were not affected, so after I deleted the registry key those icons that were not blacked out now have no arrows. The screen shot will give an example of the icons that were not affected as they have no arrows.

Maybe I will leave it alone for now unless anyone has some more ideas...

 

[TomW]

Dude! You have some major icon action going on your desktop! And agreed, the arrows just annoy the hell out of me. I used a 'fix' as well, as well as the ol' delete the piffile and lnkfile registry 'IsShortcut' values. Black icons. All the executables are blaced out... that is, links to them.

For me, it's worth it to take 20 seconds before I reboot and put my resolution to 16 bit. Then when I reboot into black icons, I changed the rez back to 32 bit and no more blacked out icons. If something happens between reboots, (8gb ram and an i7 965-I don't have to reboot often), I can always get the same result by just logging off and then back on. Whatever refreshes the registry does the trick for me.

 

[Premsuman]

Hey! all you have to do is to delete the "iconcatche.db" file that is situated in:
"C:\users\(your username)\appdata\local"
But first you have to make your system show all hidden files & folders. For this:
1) Go to folder options.
2) Go to view & check "Show hidden files & folders & drives"
Then go to "C:\users\(your username)\appdata\local" and delete the file named "iconcatche.db"
and restart the computer. At logon, your computer will automatically recreate the iconcatche.
And everything will be allright.
This process worked for mee and I am sure that it will also work for you.

 

[Flo56]

Have just sorted this for friend who had this black/blanked out icons problem on a Windows 7 laptop. I downloaded the "Vista Shortcut Overlay Remover" program from this link...
Vista Shortcut Overlay Remover - CNET Download.com
and installed it and set the arrow setting to the light arrows one then logged off/on from system and the black/blanked out icons problem was gone. The 'light' arrow setting shows shortcuts with a barely visible blue arrow in the corner which is ideal.

 

[Ev7]

Solved

This worked for me too! THANKS!

Hey! all you have to do is to delete the "iconcatche.db" file that is situated in:
"C:\users\(your username)\appdata\local"
But first you have to make your system show all hidden files & folders. For this:
1) Go to folder options.
2) Go to view & check "Show hidden files & folders & drives"
Then go to "C:\users\(your username)\appdata\local" and delete the file named "iconcatche.db"
and restart the computer. At logon, your computer will automatically recreate the iconcatche.
And everything will be allright.
This process worked for mee and I am sure that it will also work for you.