Missing Icons

[J.R. Lillard]

I seem to be having a strange problem with icons not showing up. After a
fresh install of Vista Enterprise, I almost immediately put a shortcut to my
dial-up connection on my desktop. However, instead of the normal icon I
have gotten in the past I got a broken icon. The icon looks fine everywhere
else except when I create a shortcut to a dial-up connection. Not sure what
would cause this, I continued to setup my laptop. I at one point installed
Office 2007 and added shortcuts to Excel and Word on my desktop. Everything
looked fine at this point. A couple reboots later and now my Excel shortcut
showed up as a broken icon. If even looks this way in the Start menu.
Looking directly at excel.exe, however, shows the normal icon. So far,
these are the only two icons that have been giving me troubles. Any idea
what would cause them to break? Is there a way to repair them?

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Did you try a refresh? (right click on the desktop and choose refresh)

 

[J.R. Lillard]

That didn't help.

Did you try a refresh? (right click on the desktop and choose refresh)

 

[Chad Harris]

J.R.--

1) The icon that is missing is the "dial up connection icon." Are you
talking about a system icon that can be opted into or out of from the CP
applet "Personalization">Change Icons link on the left with a checkbox?
What exactly network icon do you mean? Do you mean on the desktop or in the
notification area? You also have a second opportunity to opt in and out of
that "network" icon if you right click start>properties>Network icon check
box.

Do either of these places help you get it back? You could then drag it off
the start menu from the second place.

2) What does running sfc /scannow from an elevated command prompt (rt. click
it>run as admin) do for you?

3) What do any SR (system restore) points do for you prior to the loss of
this icon on the desktop?

How about this regedit--set a restore point and back up the reg (takes a
few seconds) per this MSKB first:

How to back up, edit, and restore the registry in Windows XP and Windows
Server 2003
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/322756/en-us

System Key:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\
Desktop\NameSpace]

To add an icon to your desktop create a new sub-key named using the CLSID
from the table below and the icon should appear after your press F5 to
refresh the desktop.

Network Computers {1f4de370-d627-11d1-ba4f-00a0c91eedba}
Network Connections {7007ACC7-3202-11D1-AAD2-00805FC1270E}


4) There are a number of network icon library downloads --some free or
trial ware.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=network+icon+registry+vista

5) This vbscript from Kelly's XP (most but not all tweaks work in Vista)
done automatically can restore the network icon in the notification area:

This one restores network places to desktop:
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/regs_edits/networkplacesshowdesktop.reg

This one restores network icon to the notification area.

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/regs_edits/networkicon.vbs

This one restores network places to the start menu.
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/regs_edits/netplaces.reg

Click it>run>yes to apply.

CH

That didn't help.

 

[=?iso-8859-1?Q?Daniel_Mart=EDn_=5BMVP_Windows=5D?=]

Hi, J.R.

You should clear the icon cache database file:

Open a command line prompt (cmd.exe), type this and press ENTER:

del /A:H "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\IconCache.db"

Then reboot the computer and see if the right icons are shown.

 

[J.R. Lillard]

This did not work.

Hi, J.R.

You should clear the icon cache database file:

Open a command line prompt (cmd.exe), type this and press ENTER:

del /A:H "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\IconCache.db"

Then reboot the computer and see if the right icons are shown.

 

[J.R. Lillard]

J.R.--

1) The icon that is missing is the "dial up connection icon." Are you
talking about a system icon that can be opted into or out of from the CP
applet "Personalization">Change Icons link on the left with a checkbox?
What exactly network icon do you mean? Do you mean on the desktop or in
the notification area? You also have a second opportunity to opt in and
out of that "network" icon if you right click start>properties>Network
icon check box.

I'm referring to a shortcut to a dial-up connection. If you right-click a
dial-up connection and choose create shortcut, it creates a shortcut on the
desktop. That's the one that's not working. But like I said, the Excel
icon has left me as well.

2) What does running sfc /scannow from an elevated command prompt (rt.
click it>run as admin) do for you?

Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

3) What do any SR (system restore) points do for you prior to the loss of
this icon on the desktop?

Well, seeing as how the first thing I did after installing Vista was to
setup a dial-up connection and put a shortcut on the desktop, the restore
points do nothing for me.

 

[Chad Harris]

Nice command tip Daniel. If you have more like these in a doc, it would be
nice to have a link.

CH

Hi, J.R.

You should clear the icon cache database file:

Open a command line prompt (cmd.exe), type this and press ENTER:

del /A:H "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\IconCache.db"

Then reboot the computer and see if the right icons are shown.

 

[Chad Harris]

How many of my tips did you use? I know that most of them should work for
you. I can't predict system restore based on what your points are. All of
them but one take less than five minutes.

CH

This did not work.

 

[Chad Harris]

And what about the others I numbered J.R.? Better to try them one by one
and then give us the feedback.

CH