Desktop shortcut icons all changed to Notepad icons

Question

All of my desktop shortcut icons on Windows 7 have changed to Notepad icons.

How do I get my old icons back?

Answer 1

Try this:

Reset the desktop icon cache

1. Click Start, and open Computer.
2. On the Tool bar, click Organize and choose Folder and Search Options.
3. Click the View tab, and check to select the Show hidden files and folders option, and click OK.
4. Then, enter the following directory:

C:\Users(User Name)\AppData\Local

1. Find the IconCache.db file, and rename it as IconCache.db.old.
2. Close the window, and restart the computer.

Answer 2

The simplest and quickest way I found is on this forum.

This simply says to delete all the keys for .lnk extension. The procedure is:

• Press [Win + R] to open run and then type regedit and hit ENTER
• Go to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts.lnk folder
• Remove every subfolder (called keys in regedit) and the keys they contain
• Now restart the PC

Now everything works fine.

Answer 3

Download and Run the batch file from this location
Follow the instructions in the command prompt to rebuild the Icon Cache.
Restart your computer to generate a new IconCache.db file.

Answer 4

Right click the icon that is appearing in wrong format. (You need to find out the file location that is wrong.) This will help if all your icons have changed to Notepad, Adobe or whatever. The file location will say either .lnk, .exe, .jpeg and so on. This is called a registry error.

Here's how to fix it.

• Click the start button on the bottom left of the computer screen.
• Type regedit in the search box.
• Click yes if it pops up.
• then go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER
  • Software -> Microsoft -> Windows -> Current Version -> Explorer -> File Exts
• Then, find what extension all your icons are showing up as, whether its .lnk, .exe and double click on it.
• Right click User Choice then delete it.
• Click yes.
• You will need to restart your computer and then all of your icons will be back to normal.