My system icons keep changing for no apparent reason. How can I make them display properly?
Submitted by George
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My system icons keep changing for no apparent reason. How can I make them display properly?
Submitted by George
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
George,
Can you provide more detail on what you mean by system icon?
Thanks,
Rob
This happens because the icon cache gets bloated and/or corrupted. There are a couple of ways to fix this problem in XP
1) Download TweakUI from the Microsoft Site: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/Downloads/powertoys/Xppowertoys.mspx
look for the ‘Rebuild Icons’ tweak and run it.
or
Right click on your desktop, choose ‘Properties’ then display settings (its the last tab).
Change the colour depth from 32bit to 16bit, or the other way round depending on your settings, then back again. Click OK to Accept the changes and that will flush your Icon Cache.
To fix this problem with Vista or Windows 7.
Open ‘Control panel’ then click on ‘Folder Options’ in classic view.
Click on the ‘View’ tab and put a check mark in the ‘Show Hidden Files and Folders’
Now click OK then OK again to close all the open windows.
Open a Windows Explorer window and navigate to C:\Users\(your user name)\Appdata\Local and scroll down to IconCache.db.
Right click on this file and select delete, confirm the deletion.
Close the window, empty your recyle bin then restart your computer.
Your IconCache has now been rebuilt.
You can now ‘Hide’ your hidden files and folders if you want, just follow the instructions above and uncheck the option.
Alan