Solved Calculator's icon on the taskbar is blank

Question · Wednesday at 4:44 PM

Win11 23h2

For some reason, calculator's icon on the taskbar is blank. But the calculator icon in the apps menu is visible.

I tried the following :

Rebuilding the icon cache : Rebuild Icon Cache in Windows 11 (all 3 methods)

Reset file associations : Restore Default File Type Associations in Windows 10 (including the registry tweak for exe files in option two)

And restarted. Nothing worked. When i open calculator, it works fine, but for some reason the icon on the task bar is blank. What's going on? Other app icons like notepad and clock show up on the taskbar fine, only calculator's icon is blank, and for some reason calculator's icon works fine in the apps menu.

RFS · Wednesday at 4:50 PM

Often used to happen to me, and with different icons. Signing out and back in again usually fixes it. Otherwise unpin from the taskbar and repin it.

antspants · Wednesday at 5:00 PM

I agree with RFS, try un-pin and re-pin first.

Question · Thursday at 12:14 AM

RFS said:
Often used to happen to me, and with different icons. Signing out and back in again usually fixes it. Otherwise unpin from the taskbar and repin it.

I have never pinned the icon to the taskbar...but i just tried pinning it and it worked. Thanks.

Question · Thursday at 1:37 PM

RFS said:
Often used to happen to me, and with different icons. Signing out and back in again usually fixes it. Otherwise unpin from the taskbar and repin it.

I just double checked and its actually not fixed. If i pin it, the icon comes back, but the moment i unpin the icon, the icon becomes blank. Why is that?

Spunk · Thursday at 11:19 PM

Run the Troubleshooter

Fix problems with apps from Microsoft Store - Microsoft Support

Get troubleshooting tips to fix problems with apps from Microsoft Store.

support.microsoft.com

dacrone · Friday at 12:43 AM

or try a .bat to reset icon cache

Code:

@echo off

echo.
taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
timeout 2 /nobreak>nul
echo.

DEL /F /Q /A %LocalAppData%\IconCache.db
DEL /F /S /Q /A %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\iconcache_*.db
DEL /F /S /Q /A %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\thumbcache_*.db

timeout 2 /nobreak>nul
start explorer.exe

idgat · Friday at 1:33 AM

Question said:
but the moment i unpin the icon, the icon becomes blank

If you're unpinning it, it should disappear??

What happens when you check the properties of the still-pinned blank icon?

What happens when you try and unpin the leftover blank icon?

Question · Friday at 4:09 AM

idgat said:
If you're unpinning it, it should disappear??

What happens when you check the properties of the still-pinned blank icon?

What happens when you try and unpin the leftover blank icon?

When i run the calculator app, the icon is blank on the taskbar. If i pin the icon, the icon will appear, but i do not want to pin it. See the attached screenshot.

Spunk said:
Run the Troubleshooter

Fix problems with apps from Microsoft Store - Microsoft Support

Get troubleshooting tips to fix problems with apps from Microsoft Store.

support.microsoft.com

Tried repairing, resetting and reinstalling the app. No change.

dacrone said:

or try a .bat to reset icon cache

Code:

@echo off

echo.
taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
timeout 2 /nobreak>nul
echo.

DEL /F /Q /A %LocalAppData%\IconCache.db
DEL /F /S /Q /A %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\iconcache_*.db
DEL /F /S /Q /A %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\thumbcache_*.db

timeout 2 /nobreak>nul
start explorer.exe

I already did this as mentioned in the OP.

Question · Friday at 6:46 AM

Fixed it myself. Uninstalled calculator again, ran wise registry cleaner, removed the calculator shortcut from the start menu, reinstalled.

Question · Friday at 8:15 AM

Spoke too soon, strangely the problem has come back...it seems that if i pin Calculator to the start menu, it will cause the icon on the taskbar to turn blank for some reason...

abactuon · Friday at 10:32 AM

Question · Friday at 11:17 AM

abactuon said:
View attachment 136196

View attachment 136197

Can you try the following :

1. Go to start menu -> apps -> right click and pin calculator to the start menu
2. Start calculator via the pinned version
3. Close calculator
4. Open it again

Does the calculator icon on the taskbar now appear blank if you do not pin it to the taskbar?

abactuon · Friday at 7:33 PM

Question said:
Does the calculator icon on the taskbar now appear blank if you do not pin it to the taskbar?

I'm fine with the icon.

Try attaching a link to “C:Windows\System32\calc.exe”, someday it will be fixed.

Question · 2025-06-07T05:28:09-0400

abactuon said:
I'm fine with the icon.

Try attaching a link to “C:Windows\System32\calc.exe”, someday it will be fixed.

So you are saying that after pinning calculator to the start menu and opening/closing it several times, the icon is still visible on the taskbar, without pinning it?

For some reason, making a shortcut to calc.exe in system32 works, but not pinning calculator from the apps menu...thanks.

RFS · 2025-06-07T05:32:09-0400

A while ago I had this problem with various apps pinned to the taskbar. The solution was to create a new user profile which reolved the issues. I assume therefore that the original user profile was somehow corrupted.

So I would suggest creating a new profile to see if this does fix the problem.

Spunk · 2025-06-07T21:12:47-0400

As stated, open a Command Prompt as Admin and copy and past or type
net user administrator active/Yes and press enter.
Sign out as you and login as the previously hidden administrator account and see if it acts the same way.

dacrone · 2025-06-08T00:09:00-0400

Pin the calculator to your taskbar. Then go to

%AppData%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar\

And delete it from there. Then see if it was just sone hiccup. I remember earlier versions of windows would sometimes leave a “ghost” of unpinned taskbar items. Sometimes you could do this trick to fix it. If not, I have a batch script that will unpin all items from your taskbar and delete all of their reg entries, including the ghosts. So if it doesn’t work I can post that script for you to try

abactuon · 2025-06-08T00:18:26-0400

dacrone said:
Pin the calculator to your taskbar. Then go to

%AppData%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar\

If you attach from the Start menu, nothing will appear in that folder.

dacrone · 2025-06-08T00:32:10-0400

You just quoted it… read the first line of what you quoted. Hence why I said it

Solved Calculator's icon on the taskbar is blank

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