Loss of icon association with shortcuts

  • Thread starter Thread starter John
  • Start date Start date
J

John

I'm running Windows XP Pro SP3. A few days ago I noticed that some of my
desktop and start menu shortcuts no longer display their icons. In an
explorer window some files types have also lost their icon.

I *think* this happened when I converted my C: drive from FAT32 to NTFS.
There were no error messages during that process but my ZoneAlarm
firewall lost its program and zone settings too. The ZoneAlarm situation
was easily corrected, but the icon situation is more difficult.

The programs affected (that I have found so far) are WinZip, Adobe
Reader, and Microsoft Office 2003.

Every single start menu shortcut for Office 2003 has lost its associated
icon and so have all of the files with office-type extensions.

Is there a repair tool to fix broken icon associations? If not, how do I
fix the Office 2003 icons? Thanks!

John
 
John said:
I'm running Windows XP Pro SP3. A few days ago I noticed that some of my
desktop and start menu shortcuts no longer display their icons. In an
explorer window some files types have also lost their icon.

I *think* this happened when I converted my C: drive from FAT32 to NTFS.
There were no error messages during that process but my ZoneAlarm
firewall lost its program and zone settings too. The ZoneAlarm situation
was easily corrected, but the icon situation is more difficult.

The programs affected (that I have found so far) are WinZip, Adobe
Reader, and Microsoft Office 2003.

Every single start menu shortcut for Office 2003 has lost its associated
icon and so have all of the files with office-type extensions.

Is there a repair tool to fix broken icon associations? If not, how do I
fix the Office 2003 icons? Thanks!

John
Click to expand...

I've found some additional information with regards to this problem. I
ran Norton WinDoctor, a component of Norton Utilities, and it found
numerous errors related to the missing icons. It also found fixes for
the problems in a full backup of my C: drive from a few weeks ago.

What appears to have happened (and I'm speculating that it may have been
another result of converting my C: partition from FAT32 to NTFS) is that
everything that was in the C:\WINDOWS\Installer directory prior to that
time is GONE. The only items that are presently in that directory I can
identify as having come from installations I did since the FAT32->NTFS
conversion.

I can easily copy everything from the backup of C:\WINDOWS\Installer
into the current directory. What I'm not sure of is if it is safe to do
that. Expert advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

John
 
John said:
I'm running Windows XP Pro SP3. A few days ago I noticed that some of
my desktop and start menu shortcuts no longer display their icons. In
an explorer window some files types have also lost their icon.
Click to expand...


Hi John,

Delete the "IconCache.db" file located at:

C:\Documents and Settings\[YOurUserName]\Local Settings\Application Data


The file will be rebuilt and your missing shortcut icons should be
restored.
 
WTC said:
John said:
I'm running Windows XP Pro SP3. A few days ago I noticed that some of
my desktop and start menu shortcuts no longer display their icons. In
an explorer window some files types have also lost their icon.
Click to expand...


Hi John,

Delete the "IconCache.db" file located at:

C:\Documents and Settings\[YOurUserName]\Local Settings\Application Data


The file will be rebuilt and your missing shortcut icons should be
restored.
Click to expand...
I tried this already but it didn't work. I think that's because it is
looking for icons in the C:\WINDOWS\Installer directory which are no
longer there.

As I said in my previous message, I have a backup of this directory and
need to know if it is safe to restore it, or if there is a special
procedure that needs to be followed to prevent something else from being
messed up. Thanks!

John
 
Back
Top