Wrong or missing program icons

[McDougal]

Hey all,

It's been a while since I've been here, so sorry if I've posted this in the wrong section.

I needed to remove one of my programs and re-install an older version. After doing so, some of my program icons are gone.

I did some research, and already tried deleting the icon cache, which did not help any. Below I have a picture of what some of my icons have changed to. I also have a picture of the properties window when I try to change the icon back manually:

I really would like to avoid a clean install (but could do it if there's no other solution), and I don't have any System Restore points .

Please let me know if you need any more information, and thanks for the help !!

-McD

 

[boohbah]

try this tutorial
SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker - Windows 7 Forums

 

[McDougal]

Doing so now....how did I forget that .....

 

[mickey megabyte]

also, did you reboot after rebuilding icon cache?

 

[McDougal]

@mickey megabyte, yeah, I rebooted a couple of times. Thanks for the suggestion tho.

Just finished the scan...and unfortunately this isn't good news :

Any other ideas?

 

[mickey megabyte]

had a feeling you would have, but it's always worth asking.

only thing i can really suggest now is to uninstall and reinstall the offending apps - has to be easier than reinstalling windows.

you really should get into the habit of system restore or other imaging strategies...

mickey's first law of computing: backup

mickey's second law of computing: backup

it's boring and may seem a waste of time, but it can save a lot of time in the end!

 

[McDougal]

had a feeling you would have, but it's always worth asking.

only thing i can really suggest now is to uninstall and reinstall the offending apps - has to be easier than reinstalling windows.

you really should get into the habit of system restore or other imaging strategies...

mickey's first law of computing: backup

mickey's second law of computing: backup

it's boring and may seem a waste of time, but it can save a lot of time in the end!

Yeah I guess you're right. I'm going to check and see how many programs are broken, if it's a lot, then I may just do a clean install. If it's only a few, then I'll definitely just reinstall the programs.

And yeah I do need to start doing System Restore. I do backup my files regularly with SyncToy, but that's it.....

 

[mickey megabyte]

my favourite imaging tool is the free macrium reflect.

the not-free acronis true image is also widely recomended by a lot of forum members.

both are more powerful than the standard windows system restore, which is certainly better than nothing at all!

 

[McDougal]

Thanks mickey megabyte, I think I'll try Macrium Reflect when I can.

I attempted to uninstall Office, and I got an error message. I also tried uninstalling other broken programs with a different error message, as shown here:

I seem to be running into more and more problems, may just as well do a clean install.

Oh well.....I'll be sure to image next time !

 

[mickey megabyte]

do you remember which program mucked things up in the first place?

i'll stick it on my 'avoid at all costs' list.

it's a good time to image once you've got the OS, updates and drivers installed, and have activated. it's a lot quicker and easier to recover from an image than go through the whole reinstall procedure.

 

[McDougal]

do you remember which program mucked things up in the first place?

i'll stick it on my 'avoid at all costs' list.

lol I installed an older version of iTunes (temporarily, version 10.4.1 x64) so I could downgrade iOS on my iPod Touch.

 

[mickey megabyte]

hehe - itunes is already on my 'avoid at all costs' list

by the way did you see my edit to my previous post?

 

[McDougal]

No but that's a good idea, I'll definitely do that and back it up to my external hard drive.

 

[McDougal]

So I just finished my clean install today !

Everything is working perfectly. I created an image with Macrium after I installed drivers/updates, and then another image after I installed my programs and configured everything.

But, I may have made a mistake with the first image. I noticed that Win7 created a 100MB "system reserved" partition. In Macrium, when I created my first image, I only selected the C: drive, not the reserved partition.

Will this image still work?

 

[mickey megabyte]

yes it will, so long as nothing happens to your system reserved partition.

if you want to be real belts-and-braces careful, re-image and include the 100MB partition.

 

[McDougal]

yes it will, so long as nothing happens to your system reserved partition.

if you want to be real belts-and-braces careful, re-image and include the 100MB partition.

Well I can't exactly re-image with only updates/drivers when I've already installed my programs .....

But it's good to know that it'll work.....thanks for the help.

 

[mickey megabyte]

why not re-image? you'll get back what you have now. i've got multiple images at various stages.

if you're feeling really geeky (and have the time), you can re-image what you have now - let's call it image B (including the sys-reserved partition).

then load up your fresh install image - let's call that A.

make a new image including A and the system partition - let's call that C. (or A+ )

once you have image C safely stored away, you can re-restore image B and get back to where you are now.

it will also give you an idea of how to restore, so you know and trust the procedure.

NEVER trust an imaging program until you know how to restore from it!

that way, if you ever find yourself in a my-system-has-died-and-it-won't-boot-OMG! panic situation, you can restore in full confidence that it will work.

 

[McDougal]

That does sound like a good idea. I'll try and find time to do it this weekend .

 

[McDougal]

Ok, so I tried to restore to the first image I made (clean install with only drivers/updates installed).

I created a Linux restore CD, and attempted to restore the image. I had to copy the files to my external hard drive in order to restore them.

Unfortunately....verification for the image failed . I tried restoring it anyway, then thought it was a bad idea and canceled it. However, I rebooted my computer, and Windows wouldn't load. It went into startup repair and couldn't repair the boot.

But......I had created an image with all my programs installed. I was able to successfully restore this image, and am running on a functional Windows!

I won't be able to get an image with no programs, but at least I have one that works......

 

[mickey megabyte]

it's a lot easier than installing and updating everything again.

hope it wan't too much bother and you learned something on the way...