windows 7 - What causes desktop shortcut icons to randomly change?

07
2014-07
  • Ryan Kearney

    I've noticed that a some shortcut icons on my desktop will randomly change to other icons on my desktop.

    Example: I have a shortcut to Cygwin, Git, Computer, Documents, Chrome, etc. The Cygwin shortcut will start off as the correct icon, however, after some restarts the Cygwin icon will change to the Chrome icon, then the Computer icon, then the Git Bash icon. It's completely random and never stops changing. Once the icon changes from the original, it never goes back to it's original state.

    I'm using Windows 7 RTM Enterprise and I can remember this happening since Windows XP.

    Any thoughts?

  • Answers
  • Joshua Kersey

    This is usually because ShellIconCache is corrupt.

  • user10547

    I have read somewhere in the distant past about icon corruption, but that's not very useful, I know.

    In earlier versions of Windows (XP, 2000, 9x), I would use TweakUI to change the arrow overlay for shortcuts, and that usually forced the icon cache to rebuild.

    Then there is this: Corrupted Shortcut Icons on the Desktop When Switching to Large Icons, but it's probably not what you're looking for.

  • Seasoned Advice (cooking)

    Personilize - Display. Change from whatever it is set to, allow log off. Do the same thing again changing back to original.


  • Related Question

    Remove shortcut icon overlay from shortcuts on Windows 7
  • David Pearce

    How can I remove those overlays that are put on every shortcut? They are a bit annoying, especially on my desktop because most of the icons are shortcuts.

    enter image description here


  • Related Answers
  • 8088

    Two quick things I found:

    Remove or modify the Shortcut overlay

    Method 1

    Download Vista Shortcut Overlay Remover (FxVisor) from frameworkx. FxVisor allows you to either way to modify or remove the shortcut overlay arrow in Windows 7 and Vista. Here is the screenshot of that utility:

    alt text

    Method 2

    Removing the shortcut arrow: Download blank_icon.zip and extract the file blank.ico to a folder of your choice. In this example, we use C:\Icons\blank.ico as the path to the icon file you downloaded. And then follow these steps:

    • Click Start, type regedit.exe and press ENTER
    • Navigate to the following branch:

      HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ explorer \ Shell Icons

    • In the right pane, create a new String value (REG_SZ) named 29

    • Double-click 29 and set its Value data as C:\Icons\blank.ico
    • Close Regedit.exe and restart Windows

    Method 3

    Download this Reg file and follow readme instruction included within zip file to remove shortcut arrow icon. (Beware: I didn't write this reg file!)

    To also removes the - Shortcut part:

    1. Click on Start and Type regedit in search bar and press enter (select yes if seen UAC prompt)
    2. Navigate to following registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
    3. Locate “Link” in right pan of registry editor

      alt text

    4. Double click or right click-> modify to modify registry key
    5. Now change the value from 18 00 00 00 to 00 00 00 00 Press ok and exit regedit

    Now try to create shortcut on your desktop and it should not show shortcut extension.

  • Dennis Williamson

    I've used the Ultimate Windows Tweaker from the The Windows Club.