Why do my shortcut icons get broken on Windows 7?

Question

I have a strange problem. My icons seem to disappear randomly on my Windows 7. They were there a while back, now they ain't.

It happens often and quite randomly. Anyone know a fix?

Answer 1

I figured it out. Here's the answer:

1. Run "regedit"
2. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
3. Change "Max Cached Icons" to 10000 or more. Upper and Lowercase SENSITIVE!
4. If it doesn't exist create it as new "string"
5. Reboot

After that

1. Go to "C:\Users\[Username]\AppData\Local"
2. Delete IconCache.db
3. Reboot again

Or try this solution that always works for me:

open cmd-console in admin mode
taskkill /IM explorer.exe /F
CD /d %userprofile%\AppData\Local
DEL IconCache.db /a
start explorer.exe via taskmanager

Edit 2016-05-07: Easiest solution: Link

Answer 2

I found the cause of the misteriously disappearing Windows 7 desktop icons and the reason why Show desktop icons now and then gets unchecked.

It’s INFRARECORDER !! Try for yourselves, when you start Infrarecorder and close it again, go have a look at “Show desktop icons”, it is unchecked (but the icons are still there). Check it on again and start Infrarecorder…. it is unchecked again.

This Windows 7 “bug” is irritating me since the beginning and now I found the cause: It’s Infrarecorder which is causing this problem.

Test it, please let me know and spread the news :-)

Answer 3

It could also be that your C:\Windows\Installer folder is empty. In this folder Office or Windows Live software installs its icons and stuff...

When this is the case, you can try to copy the {...}-folders (with some kind of identity) to your own machine.

Edit: Added a link to a forum-post: http://www.sevenforums.com/microsoft-office/49813-microsoft-office-2010-icons-missing.html

Answer 4

Microsoft Fix It service solves this problem without any editing work. Get it from here. It worked well for me. This service finds the problems and troubleshoots them.

Answer 5

Assuming that the paths are still valid, try right clicking on the shortcuts and go to the "shortcut" tab. Click on the change icon button, and see if the icon you want is in the list (if there is any list at all).

I don't know why Windows is losing track of the icon (It's happened to me a few times), but hopefully this will provide a workaround.

Answer 6

I'm on Windows 7 Professional, and have been struggling with this frustrating problem for a while now. I have tried the solution recommended here, and increasing the max cached icons seemed to fix it for a while, then the problem came back.

I finally mentioned it to my co-workers, and one of them said I should check my Windows PATH, and shorten it if it's very long. It turns out the system PATH was over 2500 bytes in length! I removed a lot of cruft and brought it down to about 1k in size, and voila! The problem has not appeared since.

Answer 7

You can easily bring all the icons on the desktop as described in the following: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3659-desktop-items-hide-show.html

Yes, it is tru, it is an InfraRecorder that makes them disappear.