Mr. Fix-It Computer Services

Corrupt Windows Icons

Sometimes your icons become corrupt, and may display an incorrect icon for a file or file type. Listed below are a few tricks to fix this problem.

Try any or all of these 4 suggestions:

1. Icons etc can become corrupt when the 'shelliconcache' file in the windows directory becomes corrupt. Deleting the file while in safe mode (and viewing all files) will solve the problem. Windows will re-build the file upon restarting and your icons will return to normal.

To do this, open the Windows Explorer, click Tools, Folder Options, View, and Select Show hidden files and folders (ShellIconCache is a hidden file) and find the ShellIconCache file. Shutdown Windows, restart your computer, hold the Ctrl key (or press the F8 key just before the Windows starts firing-up) as the computer boots, Select Start in Safe Mode from the resulting menu, and boot into Windows in Safe Mode. Next, in the Windows Explorer, click on the plus sign next to the C: drive (or whichever drive contains your Windows operating system) to expand it if isn't expanded, click on the Windows folder, scroll down the right Explorer window pane, find the ShellIconCache file, click on it to highlight it, press the Delete key, and click Yes when Windows asks if you want to send the file to the Recycle Bin. Shutdown Windows, and restart your computer (in the normal mode).

Using Search, you may find the iconcache.db file in the "\Documents and Settings\Username\Local Settings\Application Data" directory instead of Windows. No matter where you find it, delete it as per above.

2. Start-> RUN -> CMD -> sfc /scannow (you will probably need your origional XP CD in your drive to do this), and in about 15 minutes your icons should be back to normal.

3. Create a new user account. Check that the icons in this account aren't corrupt. If they are good, export your preferences and settings and documents from your old user account and your problem should be solved.

4. You can resolve this dilemma by downloading and installing Tweak UI, a very useful free utility from Microsoft; type Tweak UI in the search field and click the Go button). Once you have downloaded and saved Tweak UI to a temporary folder, look for the Tweakui.inf file. Right-click it and select Install.

After you install Tweak UI, click Start, select Settings, Control Panel, and double-click Tweak UI. Select the Repair tab in the Tweak UI dialog box. The default option is Rebuild Icons. Click the Repair Now button and Tweak UI will try to rebuild corrupt icons on your Desktop, Start menu, Taskbar, and in folders.