After the hints from Minkus (which he is correct from application point of view), I dig further and found out the root cause of the wrong icon is due .ico
file associated with other applications which were unable to handle the icon if the content of the .ico
file is actually a .exe
file, such as Windows 10 Photos app. In other words, when you double click on the .ico
file, the application which was launched was unable to handle the icon (due to what Minkus mentioned).
Instead of uninstalling the application which was associated with the .ico
file (which should work as well), just do the following:
- Find yourself an
.ico
file, or just create one yourself by renaming a file to one with extension .ico
.
- Right click on it, then choose Open with > Choose another app.
- Choose Paint, optionally check Always use this app to open .ico files, then click OK.
If you choose Always use this app to open .ico files, the icon should back to normal immediately. If you didn't, then you will need to reboot your PC.
This should fix most wrong icons on taskbar, desktop, shortcut, except those in Start Menu search result which I still have no idea how that can be fixed.
1Have you tried to rebuilding the icon cache? – Ramhound – 2015-08-07T12:56:47.083
That is the new default icon for images opened with the Photos app. It looks like your icons or thumbnails need to be refreshed. Try some of the solutions here and see if it helps: http://superuser.com/questions/951955/preview-photos-in-windows-10
– MC10 – 2015-08-07T13:06:07.183No, using disk cleanup to delete thumbnails didn't help. – bytecode77 – 2015-08-07T13:07:29.647
Did you try rebuilding as well and/or restarting? It's strange that it shows the correct icons for some and not for others. Perhaps run System File Checker
sfc/ scannow
in Command Prompt and see if it repairs any files. – MC10 – 2015-08-07T13:31:22.560I tried rebuilding & restarting using this batch file: http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/5645-icon-cache-rebuild-windows-10-a.html but still with no success.
– bytecode77 – 2015-08-07T13:32:48.697So to post an update here: I have reinstalled Windows 10 multiple times (not because of this, but because of something else). Every single time, both Evernote and TortoiseHg got these wrong icons! This time on the other hand, it seems to work, for no obvious reason. – bytecode77 – 2016-04-21T12:52:55.713