Icons Changing To Wrong Ones
Gary Higgins
more and more lately. After using my PC for an hour or two, some or
most of the icons change to totally different icons than they are
supposed to be. For example a .DOC file normally would have a Word
icon, but instead it's got a WinAmp icon. I've got dozens of different
program icons displaying incorrectly on dozens of different file types.
There's nothing in particular that I'm doing that causes it. I have
re-boot the PC, and it seems to correct it. It might not happen for a
day, but then again it might happen in about 10 minutes of use.
Have a D-300, 128Megs, V3-3000 AGP, Win98SE, latest updates, etc.. No
viruses found on PC. This one is a mystery. Appreciate any advice,
info, as to why Win98SE is doing this, and what I might do to prevent it
from happening. Thanks.
Gary
--
Gary Higgins
Chicago, IL USA
ga...@mcs.net
http://www.mcs.net/~garyh
+++ Don't Dream It, Be It +++
WSZsr
--------------------------------------------------------------------
The information in this article applies to:
a.. Microsoft Windows 95
b.. Microsoft Windows 98
--------------------------------------------------------------------
IMPORTANT: This article contains information about editing the
registry. Before you edit the registry, make sure you understand how to
restore it if a problem occurs. For information about how to do this, view
the "Restoring the Registry" Help topic in Regedit.exe or the "Restoring a
Registry Key" Help topic in Regedt32.exe.
SYMPTOMS
Some icons in My Computer, Windows Explorer, on the desktop, or
in the Quick Launch toolbar may randomly change.
CAUSE
This behavior can occur if the icon cache is not properly
updated.
RESOLUTION
WARNING: Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious
problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft
cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use of Registry
Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.
For information about how to edit the registry, view the
"Changing Keys and Values" Help topic in Registry Editor (Regedit.exe) or
the "Add and Delete Information in the Registry" and "Edit Registry Data"
Help topics in Regedt32.exe. Note that you should back up the registry
before you edit it. If you are running Windows NT, you should also update
your Emergency Repair Disk (ERD).
To resolve this behavior, use one or more of the following
methods:
a.. Press the F5 key to refresh the icons in the current
folder.
b.. Close and then reopen a window that contains incorrect
icons.
c.. Restart your computer.
d.. Delete the ShellIconCache file. This file is re-created
automatically when you restart Windows. To delete this file, use the
following steps:
1.. Restart Windows in Safe mode. To do so, follow the steps
in the appropriate section below:
Windows 95
Restart your computer. When you see the "Starting Windows
95" message, press the F8 key, and then choose Safe Mode from the Startup
menu.
Windows 98
Restart your computer, press and hold down the CTRL key
after your computer completes the Power On Self Test (POST), and then choose
Safe Mode from the Startup menu. For more information about Windows 98
startup, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
ARTICLE-ID: Q178548
TITLE : No "Starting Windows 98" Message at Startup
2.. Use Windows Explorer to delete the ShellIconCache file
from the Windows folder. To do so right-click the ShellIconCache file, and
then click Delete.
NOTE: You need to be able to view hidden files to see the
ShellIconCache file. To view hidden files in Windows 95, click Options on
the View menu in Windows Explorer, click Show All Files, and then click OK.
To view hidden files in Windows 98, click Folder Options on the View menu in
Windows Explorer, click the View tab, click Show All Files, and then click
OK.
3.. Restart your computer
e.. Using Registry Editor, add the "Max Cached Icons" (without
quotation marks) string value with a value data of "500" (without quotation
marks) to the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
and then restart your computer. If the icons are still
incorrect, delete the ShellIconCache file. The Max Cached Icons value data
range is between 100 and 2000. The default value is 500.
MORE INFORMATION
For more information about this issue, please see the following
article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
Article-ID: Q133733
TITLE : Icons Displayed Incorrectly in Control Panel
Additional query words: change replaced changing
Keywords : kbui win95 win98
Version : WINDOWS:95
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbprb
Last Reviewed: December 2, 1999
© 2000 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Terms of Use.
Article ID: Q132668
Last Reviewed:
December 2, 1999
Provided by Microsoft Product Support Services.
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(255 character max)
"Gary Higgins" <ga...@mcs.net> wrote in message
news:38B82197...@mcs.net...
ex...@teleport.com
This usually happens when the Windows icon cache no longer contains
space for the number of icons loaded on your system. A good way to fix
this is to download a copy of Activicons (freeware) from
http://www.cursorarts.com/ca_ai.html and use it to increase the size of
the cache to 4096 or higher.
If the icons don't immediately snap back to normal, reboot your system,
go back into Activicons, and click its "Rebuild Icon Cache" button
(both this and the icon cache size controls are on the "System
Controls" screen).
In article <38B82197...@mcs.net>,
Gary Higgins <ga...@mcs.net> wrote:
> Not sure if anyone has experienced this before. But it's been
happening
> more and more lately. After using my PC for an hour or two, some or
> most of the icons change to totally different icons than they are
> supposed to be. For example a .DOC file normally would have a Word
> icon, but instead it's got a WinAmp icon. I've got dozens of
different
> program icons displaying incorrectly on dozens of different file
types.
>
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Nancy Parker
TweakUI is in the powertoy folder. Lots of useful stuff, including the
Rebuild Icons found on the "Repair" tab.
Hope this helps.
Nancy
Jeff Lackey
something kinda like:
>You beat me to it! I would like to know also :)
>
>XPS R-450 16 months old win98 all updates.
>
>I've been getting this or similar for about 6 weeks or so..
>
>I spent all Friday doing a clean install, format c: install and go
>through every update needed via windows update IE 501 etc..
>Made a ghost image of c: partition for a quicker reinstallation next
>time.
>
>Today (Saturday) when I booted up some of the icons on the quick launch
>tray were different, basic system icon (white square with win logo in
>middle), My Documents folder on desktop would not respond to a double
>click, its icon in explorer was like the above. Several reboots later
>and no joy, I decided to investigate file types, Explorer > View > Folder
>options > file types.. but the file types tab was not there!
>
>I rebooted to safe mode and all was well, rebooted normally and was back
>to square one :( As I'd only put about a dozen small apps on so far I
>used Norton cleansweep to uninstall some apps, rebooted and everything is
>back to normal so far as I write this. I reinstalled some of the apps,
>the only thing I haven't reinstalled yet is The Bat! email client, so
>could it possibly be a rogue piece of software thats causing all these
>problems? Who knows, I'll just wait and see what happens over the next
>few days. Very puzzled over the disappearance of the "file types" tab
>before, ok at the moment. I was suprised it happened so quickly after a
>fresh installation of the OS.
I've been fighting the exact same problem: some icons change to the
generic white icon, which invariably means that the file types tab in
windows explorer is gone. Nothing so far has resolved the problem, and
it comes and goes. And this is on an IBM Thinkpad, so its not a Dell
only problem.
Jeff
Unknown
Once in a while, however, you may notice a problem with your
icons--they may be all black or display the wrong image. This is a
sign that
ShellIconCache is damaged. Here's a simple solution that should work
for both Windows 95 and Windows NT: Right-click on the desktop
and choose Properties. In the Display Properties dialog box, click the
Appearance tab. From the Item drop-down list, choose Icon. Click
the up arrow in the Size box to increase it by one pixel. Click Apply,
click the down arrow in the Size box to return the icons to their
previous dimensions, and click OK.
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http://www.zdnet.com/zdhelp/stories/main/0,5594,914321,00.html
Windows 95 has a file named ShellIconCache that is stored in the
Windows folder. You can fix
the damage by starting Windows 95 in Safe Mode (press F8 while
restarting Windows, and
choose the Safe Mode option), deleting the ShellIconCache file from
the Windows folder, and
then restarting Windows 95 (it will rebuild the file automatically).
All your icons should be restored
to their original colorful selves.
Nick