Desktop Icon Cache Problem(s)

Not Myself · Sep 2, 2024

(No idea where this belongs,.)

I was trying to repair the cache, to get rid of the white square on many of my desktop icons, a process that made matters worse for me. I did find one tutorial here that is supposed to do that, but the second entry of the steps to take in a command prompt only said that the line was defective. I tried to find out how to fix that, which led me yet further astray.

At that impasse, I gave up and posted this to see if anyone can provide a process that actually works.

I do recall rebuilding the icon cache at least once, which worked, but it was long enough ago that even if I had kept the instructions I am certain that they would no long be applicable.

glasskuter · Sep 2, 2024

Don't know what tutorial you used but this is the right one. Rebuild Icon Cache in Windows 11 Tutorial

Also you say the line was defective. ????
If you use a MS accout and sync to Onedrive, More than likely your issue is with onedrive.

antspants · Sep 2, 2024

You tried this .bat file?

Rebuild Icon Cache in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to rebuild the icon cache to clear and reset it for your account in Windows 10 and Windows 11. The icons that display for files in Windows are saved in an icon cache so they can be displayed quickly instead of having to manually scan and slowly load them each...

www.elevenforum.com

Not Myself · Sep 2, 2024

antspants said:
You tried this .bat file?

Rebuild Icon Cache in Windows 11

This tutorial will show you how to rebuild the icon cache to clear and reset it for your account in Windows 10 and Windows 11. The icons that display for files in Windows are saved in an icon cache so they can be displayed quickly instead of having to manually scan and slowly load them each...

www.elevenforum.com

Tried it twice. First time, message said that Defender (?) was blocking it, so I clicked on proceed anyway, file opened, said something about killing File Manager or something, not overly explicit. I proceeded, nothing happened.

Second time, after I clicked on the file, I was only told that I could proceed, nothing about the file being blocked. Clicked on the only button, there was some action showing on the monitor, but when it stopped, nothing had changed.

Rather frustrating, and a reminder of many years ago, practicing how to load the hose bed on a new fire engine, using a well-known training manual as one entry in the set of such manuals. Assistant fire chief and I tried several times, decided that the specific way of loading hose did not work for us; used a different style from the same manual, got the hose loaded. That, of course, just increased my work load, as now I had to show the firefighters how to unload the hose, then reload it.

I am willing to try this method of fixing the icons again; perhaps you could further explicate the instructions, as I must have not been doing whatever it was that they said to do and which I did not comprehend.

Icon [sic] not figure this out myself.

glasskuter · Sep 2, 2024

File has to be run as admin. Rght click on bat file and run as administrator

abactuon · Sep 2, 2024

A white square is what it is ?

Then it's a link to a file that doesn't exist.

I'm using a script

Refreshing Icon Cache

community.idera.com

Theo54au · Sep 2, 2024

The regular way to get rid of the white square in the corner of icons is:
1. Open any folder on your desktop (or elsewhere)
2. Go to "View"
3. Go down to the bottom "Show"
4. Check/un-check "Item check boxes"
That should do the job, but I assume that you already tried that.

For ANY other Icon cache issues I use a very small application "Rebuild Icon Cache)
I can post it here but I am not sure if I am allowed to post .exe files (it is less then 1mb)
I have been using this little jewel for many years now and I just had a look at the Author's info: The website doesn't exist anymore

Theo54au · Sep 2, 2024

With regards to the "Link arrows" on the Icons I have been using Winaero, a small Free app to modify the windows settings.
It has tons of options to personalize windows.
You can download it here: Winaero
It saves you a lot of time with one-click changes instead of going to Regedit or Services.msc or using the command.com editor.

Not Myself · Oct 16, 2024

Not Myself said:
Tried it twice. First time, message said that Defender (?) was blocking it, so I clicked on proceed anyway, file opened, said something about killing File Manager or something, not overly explicit. I proceeded, nothing happened.

Second time, after I clicked on the file, I was only told that I could proceed, nothing about the file being blocked. Clicked on the only button, there was some action showing on the monitor, but when it stopped, nothing had changed.

Rather frustrating, and a reminder of many years ago, practicing how to load the hose bed on a new fire engine, using a well-known training manual as one entry in the set of such manuals. Assistant fire chief and I tried several times, decided that the specific way of loading hose did not work for us; used a different style from the same manual, got the hose loaded. That, of course, just increased my work load, as now I had to show the firefighters how to unload the hose, then reload it.

I am willing to try this method of fixing the icons again; perhaps you could further explicate the instructions, as I must have not been doing whatever it was that they said to do and which I did not comprehend.

Icon [sic] not figure this out myself.

Not Myself · Oct 16, 2024

Been busy, returned to to the fray today.

I had not tried Option Three in the Rebuild Icon Cache Tutorial. That failed when it could not find C:\Users\j;ieb\AppData\Local\IconCache.db, leaving me to restart the computer.

Next?

Fabler2 · Oct 16, 2024

Try this portable freeware,

Rebuild Shell Icon Cache v1.3

Rebuild Shell Icon Cache is a potable freeware Application and it will repair (renew or Refresh) and Fix the preview of the Windows Icons

www.sordum.org

Not Myself · Oct 16, 2024

Fabler2 said:
Try this portable freeware,

Rebuild Shell Icon Cache v1.3

Rebuild Shell Icon Cache is a potable freeware Application and it will repair (renew or Refresh) and Fix the preview of the Windows Icons

www.sordum.org

Thanks, but Windows Defender won't allow it to run, this being the first time I have seen that as far as I can recollect. What do I need to do about this?

Winuser · Oct 16, 2024

Not Myself said:
Thanks, but Windows Defender won't allow it to run, this being the first time I have seen that as far as I can recollect. What do I need to do about this?

Try right clicking on it and run it as Admin. If that doesn't work you could temporarily disable Defender just long enough to run it.

Fabler2 · Oct 16, 2024

Not Myself said:
Thanks, but Windows Defender won't allow it to run, this being the first time I have seen that as far as I can recollect. What do I need to do about this?

If you've extracted it then go to Defender 'Virus & threat protection settings', manage settings and scroll down to Exclusions. Select 'Add or remove exclusions'. Select '+ Add an exclusion' and in the dropdown select 'file'. In the file explorer pane that opens find your downloads folder then the folder named RelconCash. Double click the folder and double click the next folder. Select the RelconCache_x64exe file then the open tab. You should end with this,

Otherwise if you have DefenderUI installed, find the RelconCashe_x64.exe and right click, select show more options and select DefenderUI Add Exclusion

Not Myself · Oct 22, 2024

Wonderful post, but I cannot get there. As soon as I click on "Virus and threat protection...", Malwarebytes pops up. I would turn it off, which at the moment I don't even recall how to do, which must be its entries in the Task Manager. I just need reassurance that turning it off will allow me to follow your nicely explicit instructions so that I can at least try to fix my desktop icons.

I know that I am being overly cautious, but after some stressful and very strange problems with receiving emails with, for example, no text in a 2FA reply, I am trying not to create some new problems. After that was sort of solved by turning off the Firefox extension Popup Blocker (strict), I would like something somewhere, sometime somehow, that will not make matters worse. The writer of the extension is trying to help, but I could not really answer his last post. I tried my best, and I need to check to see where this stands, and so on (and on, and...).

Fabler2 · Oct 22, 2024

I'm sorry I can't help you further as I stopped using Malwarebytes years ago. I just use their Browser Guard. Even that isn't perfect. Maybe someone using it can help here.

Not Myself · Oct 26, 2024

Winuser said:
Try right clicking on it and run it as Admin. If that doesn't work you could temporarily disable Defender just long enough to run it.

There are many options shown when I right click, but Run as Admin is not one of them.

Curiously, after I had unpacked the zip file, turned off Malwarebytes and Windows Defender and run the app without the run as admin, and nothing seemed to have taken place, I tried something out of nothing more than curiosity. When I did that, although the white boxes were still there, I found that I could edit the shortcut names, which had not been true previously. I don't know what might have changed that.

Not Myself · Oct 26, 2024

Theo54au said:
The regular way to get rid of the white square in the corner of icons is:
1. Open any folder on your desktop (or elsewhere)
2. Go to "View"
3. Go down to the bottom "Show"
4. Check/un-check "Item check boxes"
That should do the job, but I assume that you already tried that.

For ANY other Icon cache issues I use a very small application "Rebuild Icon Cache)
I can post it here but I am not sure if I am allowed to post .exe files (it is less then 1mb)
I have been using this little jewel for many years now and I just had a look at the Author's info: The website doesn't exist anymore

I don't know how to open a folder and find "View," not something I was even aware existed. Instructions?

Rebuilt Icon Cache has not helped, sadly.

Not Myself · Nov 2, 2024

Theo54au said:
With regards to the "Link arrows" on the Icons I have been using Winaero, a small Free app to modify the windows settings.
It has tons of options to personalize windows.
You can download it here: Winaero
It saves you a lot of time with one-click changes instead of going to Regedit or Services.msc or using the command.com editor.

I don't have Link Arrows, I have vertical white boxes on the lower left-hand corners of the icons.

After some assistance on the Malwarebytes forum, which I hoped would allow me to use at least of the few suggestions in this thread; sadly, so far I have had no success.

Therefore, I downloaded, installed, and ran Winaero; what I did not find is an entry for repairing this desktop icon problem. I even tried a few searches, none of which found anything for this operation. Can you provide me with the missing information if there is such a entry?

catweazel · Nov 4, 2024

Hallo,
i use this batch for a long Time, since Windows 7 or Xp ?.
Try this as a batch:
@echo off
taskkill /f /IM explorer.exe
CD /d %userprofile%\AppData\Local
DEL IconCache.db /a
Start explorer.exe

or unzip and double click this:

Desktop Icon Cache Problem(s)

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