Favorites generic icon Win11 25H2

spapakons · 2026-06-30T14:56:05-0400

The correct file in Windows 11 is imageres.dll.mun, see my previous post.

hexaae · 2026-07-01T03:13:58-0400

The icon to be shown for Favorites is defined in the desktop.ini "IconResource" and its contents shown in first message are correct (it taskes the icon image from imageres.dll -115). It should be the folder with the star.
There is no file corruption, permissions error, wrong/missing filesystem flags... everything is correct but it's not updating that icon (?) for some reason.
And the problem here is that not only the icon is incorrect but for unknown reasons it's not even localized anymore, as well as its Favorites\Links inside.... It's like the whole desktop.ini is ignored, and only for Favorites path (?).

Code:

Microsoft Windows [Versione 10.0.26200.8655]
(c) Microsoft Corporation. Tutti i diritti riservati.

C:\Users\User\Favorites>attrib
A                    C:\Users\User\Favorites\Bing.url
A  SH                C:\Users\User\Favorites\desktop.ini

C:\Users\User\Favorites>type desktop.ini

[.ShellClassInfo]
LocalizedResourceName=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21796
IconResource=%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll,-115
IconFile=%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll
IconIndex=-173

C:\Users\User\Favorites>dir
 Il volume nell'unità C è OS
 Numero di serie del volume: A2D0-CEC5

 Directory di C:\Users\User\Favorites

01/07/2026  02:57    <DIR>          .
01/07/2026  02:56    <DIR>          ..
29/05/2026  01:48               136 Bing.url
30/06/2026  22:14    <DIR>          Links
               1 File            136 byte
               3 Directory  166.405.423.104 byte disponibili

C:\Users\User\Favorites>

Please, can you tell me if you see the classic Star folder icon on your 25H2?

spapakons · 2026-07-01T03:55:56-0400

Yes, I do see the Windows 7 favorites icon (I have replaced the original Windows 11 icon with the respective icon from Windows 7 using Customizer God), it didn't change when updating 25H2 through the various builds. It only returns to the original Windows 11 icon if I install some cumulative update that replaces the system file imageres.dll.mun or if I upgrade to a newer version, such as 26H2 this October. No problem, I just customize the icons again and unless the system file is replaced they stay as they are. I am not sure if it works when modifying the desktop.ini file, but if you replace the icon inside imageres.dll.mun it will work. I used Customizer God to extract all the icons from the respective file of Windows 7 and then import them in Windows 11. Upon successfully replacing the original system file with the modified copy and restarting File Explorer I can see the nicer 3D Windows 7 icons instead of the default flat Windows 11 icons.

Here is how Windows 7 icons look in my system. For more details see my relevant posts in the Personalization section:

hexaae · 2026-07-01T03:56:44-0400

Helmut said:
All this kerfuffle about next to nothing:

File Explorer > 3 dots > Options > View Tab > Files and Folders > Always show icons, never thumbnails.

Tick shows Icons.
Untick shows an idea of Contents, though they call it thumbnails.

My preference is Untick, but chose whatever you like.

It's an Option not a glitch, bug, or bad update.

No. You probably missed part of the thread.
Of course I can force to show Icons only (and indeed will show the star folder icon in this case) but that's not normal, and the name is still not localized as well as its Links folder inside which should be localized as well. The bug of ignored desktop.ini won't be solved forcing a different view mode of explorer.
(Not sure how many users here understand what's the desktop.ini for and its contents at this point...)

hexaae · 2026-07-01T04:13:40-0400

This is how it should look like on Win 11 25H2 ITA:

... and Favorites should appear as "Preferiti", as well as Favorites\Links --> "Barra Preferiti", all localized (as defined by desktop.ini).

hader · 2026-07-01T04:16:05-0400

hexaae said:
Please, can you tell me if you see the classic Star folder icon on your 25H2?

To be short: No. In your screendump I see a lot of other folders that has strange symbols on it. That is not standard. Do you use some kind of third-party software that change the look of Windows 11? (e.g. Modified classic Win7 theme) Check for that datestamp of imageres.dll. Mine has been replaced recently by an Windows update (8655) At properties and details you find more information where this file originated from.
Mine has these properties;

hexaae · 2026-07-01T04:23:25-0400

hader said:
To be short: No. In your screendump I see a lot of other folders that has strange symbols on it. That is not standard. Do you use some kind of third-party software that change the look of Windows 11? (e.g. Modified classic Win7 theme) Check for that datestamp of imageres.dll. Mine has been replaced recently by an Windows update (8655) At properties and details you find more information where this file originated from.
Mine has these properties;

View attachment 175656

Yes I have the same imageres.dll version. You mean in the first message? What non-standard icons do you see?
Of course they are all standard icons in any Windows 11 installation for Pictures, Documents, etc.
Maybe you forced File Explorer > 3 dots > Options > View Tab > Files and Folders > Always show icons, never thumbnails and are not used to see "thumbnails" mode (which is the one defined by the desktop.ini file in every folder)?

hexaae · 2026-07-01T04:44:31-0400

The funny thing is that "Home" virtual folder showed for a moment the correct icon (but again, missing localization), even though the %USERPROFILE% folder still shows that generic icon....

hader · 2026-07-01T04:50:40-0400

hexaae said:
Yes I have the same imageres.dll version. You mean in the first message? What non-standard icons do you see?
Of course they are all standard icons in any Windows 11 installation for Pictures, Documents, etc.
Maybe you forced File Explorer > 3 dots > Options > View Tab > Files and Folders > Always show icons, never thumbnails and are not used to see "thumbnails" mode?

No. I forced or changed nothing. With non-standard I mean that screendump you showed earlier (pic#1); What's not standard is all those maps that contains an image onto the folder. You mentioned already Star, others are Collegamenti, Contatti, Desktop, Favorites, OneDrive and Partite. In my system they are represented by a normal empty folder. Only Documenti, Download, Immagini, and Musica matches mine.

My Personal folder

OneDrive folder

The only thing I turned on is don't show hidden folders for these screenshots.
As you can see I make use of OneDrive. If I didn't all those folders inside the OneDrive map will be appear in the Personal folders.

Note: I have never changed any icon to have an other icon representation. So everything is how Windows 11 is representing itself.

spapakons · 2026-07-01T05:10:03-0400

If you see the wrong icons, you may need to clean the icon cache. One easy way to do that is to delete all iconchache*.db files in folder

C:\Users\yourname\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer

You may have to terminate File Explorer and do it from Command Prompt or third-party file manager. Then start File Explorer again, the changes take effect immediately. It won't find any icon cache to rely on, so it will read all icons again and display the correct ones.

If you added Italian as a language pack on English version of Windows 11, sometimes the mixed text is a known bug. Not everything is replaced by the respective Italian version. Don't worry, after installing a couple of updates they will eventually switch all to Italian. I have seen it before when adding Greek as language pack on English installation.

hader · 2026-07-01T05:41:49-0400

hader said:
Note: I have never changed any icon to have an other icon representation. So everything is how Windows 11 is representing itself.

O.T.

That having said. I do use the autorun.inf and autorun.ico mechanism in the root of each device to change the appearance of the default device icon of Windows 11 itself. Inside autorun.inf

[autorun]
icon = autorun.ico
label = Win11 25H2

And autorun.ico had the icon file for the device itself. It overrules the settings of explorer.exe and I can identify my drives more easily. The icons It uses autorun.ico inside the root of each device: A list of possible icons.

Used to change the settings inside the registry, but that had one drawback; if the drive letters has an other order it gives the wrong icon for the device. Using that autorun.inf and .ico mechanism the icons stays with the drive. If a change occurs; a reboot will active the icons. (Logging off and on is sometimes not enough)

hexaae · 2026-07-01T05:42:19-0400

hader said:
No. I forced or changed nothing. With non-standard I mean that screendump you showed earlier (pic#1); What's not standard is all those maps that contains an image onto the folder. You mentioned already Star, others are Collegamenti, Contatti, Desktop, Favorites, OneDrive and Partite. In my system they are represented by a normal empty folder. Only Documenti, Download, Immagini, and Musica matches mine.

My Personal folder
View attachment 175660

OneDrive folder
View attachment 175661
The only thing I turned on is don't show hidden folders for these screenshots.
As you can see I make use of OneDrive. If I didn't all those folders inside the OneDrive map will be appear in the Personal folders.

Note: I have never changed any icon to have an other icon representation. So everything is how Windows 11 is representing itself.

Well, I'm afraid you have more problems than me then

, f.e. OneDrive folder should use its default icon, as well as %USERPROFILE%\Contacts (Contactpersonen)... and should all be localized, including Favorites.

Here for example you can see standard Win 11 icons for default folders:

Change Folder Layout View in Windows 11 File Explorer

This tutorial will show you how to change the layout view of a folder in File Explorer for your account in Windows 11. In Windows 11, you can change the layout view of a folder in File Explorer to show all items in the folder with a extra large icons, large icons, medium icons, small icons...

www.elevenforum.com

spapakons · 2026-07-01T06:18:17-0400

hader said:
O.T.

That having said. I do use the autorun.inf and autorun.ico mechanism in the root of each device to change the appearance of the default device icon of Windows 11 itself. Inside autorun.inf

[autorun]
icon = autorun.ico
label = Win11 25H2

And autorun.ico had the icon file for the device itself. It overrules the settings of explorer.exe and I can identify my drives more easily. The icons It uses autorun.ico inside the root of each device: A list of possible icons.
View attachment 175666
Used to change the settings inside the registry, but that had one drawback; if the drive letters has an other order it gives the wrong icon for the device. Using that autorun.inf and .ico mechanism the icons stays with the drive. If a change occurs; a reboot will active the icons. (Logging off and on is sometimes not enough)

If you have a device always connected or that you want to always take the same drive letter, such as a card reader, you can modify Registry so that drive letter always shows a specific icon. I have done that for my old CF and SD card reader. The CF slot always shows a CF card and the SD slot always show an SD card, irrespectively from there is a card inside or not. I don't remember all the details right now. Similarly you can change the drive label to always be a specific text.

hader · 2026-07-01T07:13:57-0400

hexaae said:
Well, I'm afraid you have more problems than me then , f.e. OneDrive folder should use its default icon, as well as %USERPROFILE%\Contacts (Contactpersonen)... and should all be localized, including Favorites.

Here for example you can see standard Win 11 icons for default folders:

Change Folder Layout View in Windows 11 File Explorer

This tutorial will show you how to change the layout view of a folder in File Explorer for your account in Windows 11. In Windows 11, you can change the layout view of a folder in File Explorer to show all items in the folder with a extra large icons, large icons, medium icons, small icons...

www.elevenforum.com

Hahaha... No.

I think I understand what is happening and why....
It seems to be a normal representation of the icons. If you resize your icons to large icons. Never thought of that. I never use large icons. It get so cramped inside a window. I have to scroll to see them all. I used large icons and now i see those unfamiliar icons inside each folder like Collegamenti, Contatti and Partite salvate. The reason is also straight forward: No enough pixel space to show them correctly. The same folders now;

My Personal Folder

OneDrive Folder

A second thing. It seems that explorer adapts it's folder representation depending what lies inside that folder. For instance in my case the folder Icon_Library the folder contains a lot of .reg files. The folder show a bit of the .reg icon. That my Desktop folder icon is not the same as your is because if have not only many shortcuts to programs but folder maps and .txt files also. It's a kind of mix of many things so Windows represent it as a "mix" So explorer dynamically changes it representation depending what kind of files lies underneath.

Found out also where that star folder is coming from; A setting. Inside map-options and at the tab: Display. If I turn on the option "Always show icons, never thumbnails" then explorer don't examine what it finds underneath it. With large icons and this turned on; My Favorites has also that star on the folder. All the above folders with some kind of representation changes just in unmarked default folders.

With this option turned on; OneDrive Folder changes into. icons are just what they are. Miniatures or thumbnails are an alternate folder icon with a symbol what lies underneath it. When this option is turned on: It does not look inside the folder, off it does.

My Personal folder

OneDrive folder

I turn this option off again; it give me a representation what's inside it. If I return to normal icon size the unfamiliar icons disappear and the folder representation is still there all be it somewhat smaller. Found out stuff now that I did not know before. Maybe you too.

spapakons · 2026-07-01T07:45:38-0400

If one size (such as small icons) doesn't show the icons properly, but another size (such as large icons) does, then you should clear the icon cache so File Explorer will check the icons again and display the proper ones. See my earlier post.

hader · 2026-07-01T08:06:13-0400

spapakons said:
If one size (such as small icons) doesn't show the icons properly, but another size (such as large icons) does, then you should clear the icon cache so File Explorer will check the icons again and display the proper ones. See my earlier post.

Thanks. But I am content with what I have now. Those special symbols inside a folder icon has no meaning for me. If i want to change an icon I always can change them. Rather don't do that because if things change due to an update they can be gone also. I use Explorer which is set to show detailed information and look at the icons and to which program it's associated with to quickly see what they are. I have no icons that deviate from the normal representation. So there is no need to clear my icon cache.

hexaae · 2026-07-01T08:52:05-0400

Yep, that's how Win GUI works.... It calls them "thumbnails" but actually are dynamic icons adapting to the contents (will change image if you move pics, other dirs etc. inside).... And then you also have an option to avoid this behavior, first mentioned above by Helmut... and finally yes, they can change according to their dimensions too

Some system icons have more restrictions though...

However nothing has changed in my system, and everything is correct (desktop.ini filesystem flags, its contents, fs flags for Favorites dir, permissions, registry keys I know of...) but for unknown reason the other day I noticed it wasn't using the usual star folder for Favorites and also realized it wasn't localized as usual... There is no icon cache clean-up able to fix this ATM (nothing worked, and the fact that localization is also ignored raised a bigger doubt it's not just a usual icon cache issue...).

Still a mystery to me... let's see if goes back to normal in the future as sometimes happened in the past with minor Win glitches between updates

Favorites generic icon Win11 25H2

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