Solved Windows 7 Desktop Icons altered with White Sub-icon

[IanMc]

Hello,

All of sudden, most of the shortcut icons on my desktop have a white rectangle added to them with a small system icon in the middle of this white rectangle. Making a new shortcut still creates this "sub-icon". However, if I simply create a text document on the desktop it's ok. The weird thing is that some icons have this problem and some don't (e.g. folder shortcuts) - see screenshot below.

I have tried deleting the iconcache.db file and running a tweak called LnkFix, both to no avail. I also booted in Safe Mode and they are there too.

In desperation I did an 18 hour Acronis system restore to a few days ago when I don't recall having the problem. Still there!

Any help would be most welcome.

Kind regards

 

[Brink]

Hello Ian, and welcome to Seven Forums.

This is an issue with your shortcut arrow overlay on the icon. Restoring the default overlay should sort this for you.

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

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[IanMc]

Shawn, you're a genius!

When I was thinking about the problem, the old program TweakUI came to mind which, as you probably know has a component like the overlay fix you suggested. So I guess I was on the right track.

Thanks heaps for the fast response - fantastic.

Ian

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome Ian. Glad it could help.

 

[BuckSkin]

Hello Ian, and welcome to Seven Forums.

This is an issue with your shortcut arrow overlay on the icon. Restoring the default overlay should sort this for you.

Shortcut Arrow - Change, Remove, or Restore

Hope this helps,
Shawn

A big THANKS to Brink for the link and IanMc for posting the question.
I have no idea as to why, but all of my desktop shortcut icons got their arrows replaced with white rectangles with some sort of symbol within the rectangles.
I used the remedy supplied by Nosmo.
When I navigated the registry path, I found that I already had a 29; I right-clicked it > Modify > and replaced whatever was there with the text supplied, restarted, and now I have the neat little XP arrows instead of the huge ugly Win 7 arrows.
I have one stubborn task-bar icon that has been completely replaced with a similar white rectangle.
This particular icon had went to white several days prior to all of the desktop icons losing their arrows.

By the way, this is not the first, nor even the second time that this has happened to one of our machines.
Thanks again.

 

[Brink]