Overlay Icons on Thumbnails

[Scottyboy99]

Hi guys,

Not sure how long this has been happening but I noticed an occasional issue. Basically I have loads of videos on my laptop (mainly MP4) and WMP is the default player. When I browse the folders they all display a nice thumbnail with a little WMP icon overlay in the bottom right corner of the thumbnail. However sometime I see the little icon overlay changes to another random icon, the same random icon across all WMP files. So I lose the WMP icon (the actual thumbnail picture is correct still). If I double click the files WMP still launches to play the file so the actual program association is fine, it's just the icon. As far as I can see it's just the Windows Media Player icon overlay that does this. It's quite rare and intermittent but I have noticed it happen twice in recent weeks. A quick reboot and all is back to normal.

Sorry hard to explain but I hope I got the message across ok. Any advice would be gratefully received.

Cheers,
Wayne

 

[boohbah]

you could try re assigning the file associations, select the default programs from the start menu and set wmp as the default

 

[kado897]

Try running through these tutorials.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/10797-thumbnail-cache-clear-reset.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/49819-icon-cache-rebuild.html

 

[Scottyboy99]

Thanks for the suggestions, but still have the issue with the icon in bottom right if the thumbnail. The thumbnail itself is always fine, it's just the icon! If I change view to small icons they all look ok but then I go back to large icons and the mini icons are still the problem. It's even doing it on word docs/excel/PDF files occasionally too. If I logout and login it fixes, and if I go to default program's and set the associated program for a vid file to media player again it also fixes everything. But the issue always comes back. I believe I know what is triggering it too. All remains fine until I go into my add / remove program's list (detail view). This obviously sets something off as then I will go into the videos or documents folder and see the thumbnail cover/display icon become random again. The random icons are always icons relating to other programs on my laptop. And the same random icon will be used for all file formats. For instance all video files will still display the thumbnail but in the bottom right the cover icon might be a control panel icon for all videos, whilst all word docs showing a thumbnail view might have another consistent although random icon. I do have a good 40 gigs worth of video and hundreds of photos but I can't say I really noticed this issue until recently. Although I don't go into add/remove programs list regulary. But now I know it's happening it's frustrating. Any ideas?

I have attached a Jpeg example, as you can see in the bottom right corner the icon relates to Google Earth icon, but these are video files and should have the orange media player mini icon.

 

[Scottyboy99]

Also to add if I double click any of these files the right program launches despite the random cover icon! I am baffled as I have cleared icon and thumbnail cache several times now. I could untick the view icon on thumbnails in view options but I like seeing these icons to differentiate - just finding it irritating.

 

[kado897]

Sorry for taking so long to get back. I'm out of ideas but I'll ask others to have a look.

 

[Scottyboy99]

Thank you very much Kado. I'm pretty baffled, it could just be a windows 7 bug that I haven't noticed before or maybe some kind of bug intro'd from win updates at some point. We have another Win 7 laptop at home and I can't seem to recreate the problem but then again this one has hardly any media on it!

 

[Arc]

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3606-shortcut-arrow-change-remove-restore.html

Have a try?

 

[boohbah]

have you tried setting the default program it opens with by right clicking on a movie thumbnail and selecting open with, then select choose default program, then choose the prog you want from the list, this may help re-assign the default associations

 

[kado897]

Here's a thought. What happens if you uninstall Google Earth?

 

[Scottyboy99]

I can try and uninstall it. Though I don't think it'll make a difference, that just happened to be the icon on that occasion. I will reboot my laptop later and find the thumbnail display icons are normal ... Until I look in add/remove program's again and go back to the videos (or documents) folders to find another icon being used, it could be anything each time it happens.

Cheers
Wayne

 

[boohbah]

did you see my last post?

 

[Scottyboy99]

Yes sorry I am going to try that when I get home from work.

 

[boohbah]

ok good luck, keep us posted.

 

[Scottyboy99]

Well I tried your suggestion with right click after changing default association to QuickTime for mov and mp4 files. Will keep an eye on it but so far so good. Thanks for your help on this. Still baffled as to why it started to happen though seemingly for no reason and that rebuilding the icon and thumbnail cache did not work. I am sceptical as to whether it will hold but for now it's ok. Cheers all

 

[kado897]

Good news. Lets hope it sticks.

 

[boohbah]

thats good to hear, fingers crossed.

 

[Scottyboy99]

It's still a bit iffy. For the most part the display icon is holding correct but the other night I noticed word doc thumbnails all had the same random cover icon in the bottom right (sims 2.exe icon!!!). The actual thumbnail itself was correct and changing view to normal icons showed a correct doc icon. And launching the file opens the right program. So it's just this display icon.

I know I can disable 'Display Icon on Thumbnails' but I like to keep it because it makes it obvious what type of file it is at a glance but I'm beginning to think maybe it's a small windows bug. It's easily fixed by going into the file associations or setting the default program again. Instantly refreshes it all correctly. But it's frustrating as it doesn't happen on my vista laptop or the windows 7 desktop at work. Granted neither machine has anything like the glut of media and pics that the offending Windows 7 laptop has but it's still frustrating. Mostly going into add/remove programs list seems to trigger but in recent days it hasn't done so. However, the last time it happened early yesterday evening I put a cd in and although it launches media player to play music fine (as this is default), I was curious as to whether right clicking the cd icon in explorer and opening autoplay options (without actually changing anything) would have an impact. Sure enough I then saw in a sub folder within my documents the random thumbnail on the word docs. It's very minor but also quite frustrating.

Cheers
Wayne

 

[kado897]

Googling it seems to only give solutions we have suggested. e.g Fixing When All Thumbnail Icons Show the Same or Wrong Image - How-To Geek

 

[Scottyboy99]

Cheers mate. Yeah, I have googled until I am blue in the face and seen this. Trouble is most of the fixes including this one are to fix the actual thumbnail. My thumbnails are all absolutely fine, it's just the small icon on the bottom right of the thumbnail and it's very intermittent. Bizarre really. Hmmm, trying to know the cause is like looking for a needle in a haystack. It might of been happening for a long time but I only noticed it recently.

Thanks,
Wayne