I recently installed a larger hard drive in my system. I used Seagate's software to migrate the OS and programs. After the install everything was fine. I installed Sybot S&D, backing up the registry when installing it. Now I get a lot of generic icons on my desktop, the most noticable being the Microsoft Office 2000 icons. They are all displayed as a little white box with a blue bar and three little boxes on top. I'm not sure what is causing this, and here's what I done to date. Ran a scan with AVG, Stinger, and Adaware. Everything returned clean. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Mike
Mike, Try starting your computer in SAFE mode then restart it in Normal mode. This will rebuild ithe Iconcache.db file and should correct your generic icon problem. Tufenuf
Tufenuf,
Thanks for the quick reply. I started my computer in Safe Mode, then restarted normally. The problem still persists, any other thoughts?Thank-you,
Mike
Mike, Your max iconcache may need to be increased. Go to the link below and scroll down to line 166 right colum and download the "Add Icon Cache Size to Folder Options/View" .reg file. Save the REG File to your hard disk. Double click it and answer yes to the import prompt. This will give you 4 icon cache choices under the View tab in Folder Options. You can experiment with the choices starting with the smallest first. See if this corrects your problem. Add Icon Cache Size to Folder Options/View
Tufenuf
Tufenuf,
I tried this, and I see no change. I'm not 100% sure I did it properly, because I did not get 4 choices. Thanks for your help and patience.Mike
Mike, How many icon cache options did it give you under the View tab in Folder Options? If you checkmarked any you should click Apply/OK then restart your computer for the change to take affect. Tufenuf
OK,
I ran through it again, and made notes of the options presented.
1. Downloaded file to my hard disk.
2. Double clicked on the file and received the standard "warning publisher not verified.." I could "run" or "cancel".
3. Clicked on "run", asked me, "are you sure you want to add C:\IconCache to the registry" Clicked "yes" and it tells me it has been done successfully.I don't get any icon cache options. If I right click on the IconCache folder, I do get a "Merge" option which I didn't try.
Thanks,
Mike
Mike,
"3. Clicked on "run", asked me, "are you sure you want to add C:\IconCache to the registry" Clicked "yes" and it tells me it has been done successfully."After you did the above did you restart your computer then check under the View tab in Folder Options?
Tufenuf
Tufenuf,
I re-ran the IconCache, then went to the View tab in Folder Options. I went through all 4 options, 1024,2048,4096, and 8192, restarting after each change. Still no success. The last thing I tried was to Restore Defaults and then reboot, also with no success. My default setting is 2048. I'm beginning to think I really screwed something up.Thank-you,
Mike
Mike, Go to the link below and download TweakUI and install it. After you install it you will find it in Start/Programs/Powertoys for Windows XP/TweakUI. Open TweakUI and under the "Repair" section choose the "Rebuild Icons" and click the "Repair Now" button. Hopefully it will correct the problem. Tufenuf
Tufenuf,
No luck...I installed TweakUI, and rebuilt the icons, and there is no change. Now even some non-Microsoft icons are going generic. Am I down to reinstalling everything, or is there possibly a deeper problem? Thanks for all your help.Mike
Mike, Usually all the previous recommendations I supplied should have corrected the problem. Go to the link below and download "RefreshEm" and see if that works. Others have used it with success. If this don't solve the problem I have one more possible solution but try the above first.
Tufenuf
Tufenuf,
I downloaded and ran the RefreshEM utility. When I double clicked on the icon, the only thing that happened was the screen flickered a bit. I tried it several times including a reboot. Is this what is supposed to happen? No change with the icons however. I also checked to make sure that the Msvbvm60.dll file is on my system as I noted it was necessary for the program to run properly.Thanks,
Mike
Mike, As far as the RefreshEm yes that's what's supposed to happen and I'm sorry that even that didn't correct your icon problem. The quotes below is from your original post.
"Now I get a lot of generic icons on my desktop, the most noticable being the Microsoft Office 2000 icons".If those icons are shortcuts have you tried right clicking them, choose Properties, under the Shortcut tab click the Change Icon button and see if you can change it to what it should be. If this doesn't work the only thing I can think of is that your IconCache.db file is corrupted which is no big deal. I can't guarantee anything but try this.
You can delete or rename your IconCache.db file. It's located in C:\Documents and ettings\your username\Local Settings\Application Data
It's a hidden file, you might have to check "show hidden files" in the view tab of Explorer.
Next reboot.
Windows will create a new IconCache.db on reboot.Tufenuf
Tufenuf,
I tried this as well, and the problem still persists. I truly appreciate your help in trying to resolve my dilemma. Unless there is something else to try I think I need to reinstall the OS and the Office programs. More than likely I will need some assistance with this, as I am not a professional.Best Regards,
Mike
Mike, I had the same issue as you and I tried all the fixes on this page with no change. I found this fix in the registry and it worked for me. Go to the following site maybe it will fix your problem as well.
http://www.pcbanter.net/showthread.php?t=713470
Good luck,
Maurice
Hi Mike- If it's just the Word and Excel icons that are acting up, mine were doing the same thing until I downloaded the files "wordicon.exe" and "xlicons.exe" from DriverGuide.com (free registration req'd). To find out where to put them, open Start>Settings>Control Panel>Folder Options>File Types.
Scroll down to the ".doc" extension (for Word) or ".xls" (for Excel) and click on it to highlight it. Then, click on "Advanced" and finally "Change Icon". When you click on "Change Icon", you'll probably get a pop-up that says Windows can't find the file "C:\Windows\Installer\blah-blah-blah\wordicon.exe" (blah-blah-blah = a bunch of numbers you'll see. You'll find it in the Installer folder)
That's the folder where you want to save them to. To find the "Installer" folder, you'll have to go back to "Folder Options" and click "View" and clear the checkbox that says, "Hide protected operating system files". Click "Apply", and wollah! now you can find the "Installer" folder. (I know that wollah! isn't the French spelling, but so what?)
Paste the files into that folder and you should be good to go. You may need to restart your computer, but I was able to just right-click the desktop and choose REFRESH. Now it's all good with my icons, and I hope yours will be too.-DErifter
Hi I'm having the same sort of problem,but my problem is that both my hard disk drives do not show the drive icons beside each drive.They show generic icons instead,I have not installed any new software recently,and I did virus scans,and spyware scans but everthing shows up normal.I followed all the advice above but nothing fixed it,not sure what to do now,I don't really want to reformat.
As I said already I have a partioned drive,c and d,both about 40GB each,both use NTFS file system,and both do not show the proper icons.All the files and folders in each drive show proper icons,so I confused as to why the icons would change.I did check the iconcache size,and adjusted it but didnt work,also booted in safe mode,didnt help either,and I ran the programs above mentioned to repair the icons,but nothing I have done will help.
any suggestions would be appreciated.
