Solved Invisible icons at taskbar

Bastet said:

Does signing out or restarting the pc restore the icons?

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Bug locker said:

Nope.
Thanks.

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TechnoMage2021 said:

Two things:
Turn ON the System Restore points. They can be invaluable when you need to back up a day or two.

Then when a problem is too big for System Restore to handle, a full C: drive backup image can save your day.
Always to a full C: backup, before you make any changes to your system. I do it once a week just for general purposes.

Sorry, that's all the advise I have today.

TM

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Bug locker said:

When I pinned them back the problem was solved !

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Flashorn said:

Well, it's about time!
Glad you were able to solve it.
I wouldn't of thought of it as I usually keep all
of my images in jpeg. I wonder, which of these
files were used to generate the ,ico files. Could be
that the images in the programs were corrupted
somehow.

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Bug locker said:

It looks like some of the 3 drivers update that i did crashes some filetypes at registry

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Flashorn said:

I was going to ask you to uninstall those drivers but, it didn't seem
plausible as other members were giving more relevant advice.
The advice that TM gave about a restore point is as good as it gets
IMO. I have always hated the fact that restore was not used in many
cases before giving up hope. That has saved me allot of problems in the past
and I'm sure it will still save me in the future.
Good to know that all is well again.

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Bug locker said:

I tried uninstalled , not solved.

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Flashorn said:

Have simply tried to Roll Back the drivers?

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Bug locker said:

Yeap.

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Flashorn said:

So, you're saying that you cannot roll back or uninstall the driver(s) in question right?

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Bug locker said:

No. I say i tried before the solution of the issue.

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ZERO269 said:

Hi @Bug locker

I can't tell you exactly why those icons are blank, but there are 2/3 possibilities that I know of:

1. OS Corruption (possible problem but check first)
2. Profile Corruption (not likely your problem)
3. Missing/Corrupt <pinned> file(s) (most likely your problem)

OS Corruption

​

I would first rule out OS corruption before proceeding. Based on the threads history, you may have already done that, but I'll add it here just incase:​

1. Run the Command Prompt as an Administrator
2. sfc /scannow

If no integrity violations were found, then no OS corruption was detected. If you see "found and repaired", restart and run again.​

If you see "found and repaired" again, watch this: Ultimate Guide to Fix Almost ANY Windows Corruption (Without Reinstalling) by ThioJoe​

Profile Corruption

This is an easy check and honestly I don't think this will be your issue; but worth checking and knowing about.​

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Open the registry and paste this path into the address bar:​

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList​

​

If you see any with .bak at the end, that profile is corrupt.​

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View attachment 67834​

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What profile is it? Select it in the list and in the Right Pane look at the value for the subkey ProfileImagePath.​

If it's your profile that's corrupt, you will need to restart the computer and login with a different account with Admin permissions to repair it.​

​

Just rename the profile key by removing ONLY the ".bak" from the end of the name. Log off and login with the repaired user profile.​

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Keep in mind this may not solve the issue with the blank icons, but it may allow you to fix the problem using the next method.​

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Missing/Corrupt icon file:

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Those icons that Windows uses on the Taskbar (W10/W11) for your profile are located here:​

%AppData%\Roaming\Microsoft\InternetExplorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar​

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%appdata% and beyond are hidden, so the easiest way to get there is to Copy/Paste full path into the Run window.​

​

In the earlier versions of W10, those files were actually icon files (.ico). I just noticed they are now using links (.lnk) instead; for both W10/W11 22H2.​

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If you hover your mouse over each hidden icon, you should still be able to see their names. Take note of them.​

Go to the Taskbar directory and and look at the file properties for each of those programs; right-click Properties.​

​

You can try changing the icon using the Change icon button, or replacing the shortcut altogether.​

If you replace the shortcut file, be sure to take note of the values in the "Start in" field. There are some differences besides the obvious; see comments below.​

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Besides that, I noticed that some built-in Windows apps like the Calculator, Snipping Tool or Snip & Sketch will not show in that Taskbar folder.​

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View attachment 67831​

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If replacing the taskbar shortcuts manually, be sure to Unpin them first then restart explorer.exe. Add the shortcut, verify Start in values are correct then restart explorer.exe again to see if it shows correctly on the Taskbar. Use that "Open File Location" button in the file properties window to make it easier.​

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Repeat for each one and don't forget you always have the option to Change icon in the file properties; restart explorer and see if that does the trick.​

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I posted on this topic in the tenforums 7 years ago if interested. Just not it was replacing icon files, not shortcuts which Windows is using now.​

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Last Resort:​

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Create a new Profile and pin all the programs that were showing blanks.​

Logoff/on and see if they are still displayed properly.​

If all good, migrate your profile over to the new one. Do not copy your %appdata% over, just the CONTENTS for each of your data folders... not the data folders themselves. The point is to start with a clean profile.​

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Desktop, Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures, Videos​

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Once you've confirmed everything was safely moved to the new profile, you can purge the old one using these steps:​

Run netplwiz > select the profile > Remove​

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blog: What is Netplwiz.exe and How can One Use it ?​

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WARNING:​

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* IF you are logging into your computer with your online Microsoft account... you're life just got more complicated with replacing your profile. You'll need to search for a solution online... I only use local accounts on my systems.​

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* If using OneDrive or any other cloud synchronization tools, be sure to look up how to safely preserve your data. You will likely just need to log out of the service after a final sync. This way when you login to your cloud service with your new windows user profile, everything will sync to the new profile and not the old one.​

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***********************************************************************************************************************************************​

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Start in values:​

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For example, on my W10 system:​

• Non-MS programs pointed to their respective program files directory. EX: VMware Workstation Pro has: "C:\Program Files (x86)\VMware\VMware Workstation\"
• PowerShell ISE has: %HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%
• All the MS programs are blank in the Start in field, except for Remote Desktop (%windir%\system32\)

​

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Bug locker said:

Amazing !
I opened the pictures folder.
I noticed that 2 file types are not displayed correctly in the preview : .png , .bmp.
Instead of previewing the image, it showed me a standard icon.
Then to fix it I thought of resetting these 2 file types.
After that I tried unpinning the problematic icons from the taskbar.
When I pinned them back the problem was solved !
So something had crashed the default file types for these 2 types.


View attachment 67782

Thanks !!!!!!!!!!!

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Bug locker said:

Hey.
After the update of 3 drivers (NVIDIA GPU , Genesys Logic card reader , HP wide vision camera) via Driver Booster , some icons at task bar become invisible.
Unfortunately, i don't have restore points or image backups before the problem appears.
Any suggestions ?
Thanks.

View attachment 66856

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MachineLanguage said:

Are you also having issues with File Manager? File manager would not update documents or download folder. Perhjaps others I didn't notice.
Had the same taskbar issue after the windows update with week. Revuiding the icon cache in safe mode worked. For awhile.

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MachineLanguage said:

Well I just noticed the numerous typos I had in this post. Sorry about that. No way that could be clear.
My symptom was when I would open file manager and click on the documents or download folder file manager would stop responding. Every time. I also had som,e icons on the taskbar that had turned invisivle. When I hovered over them they indicated which application they were for and clicking on them would activate the applications.
This began happening after the cumulative update earlier this week. I ran SFC and DISM but there were no issues indicated. Attempted to run the Rebuild icon cache bat file but it would not run. Activated safe mode. No issues were indicated by SFC or DISM. Rebuild icon cache bat file would run. No visible change to invisible icons on task bar either. Restarted into normal mode and taskbar icons reappeared correctly and file manager worked correctly. Did some further testing but was not able to conclusively determine cause. Symptoms would reappear after iI ran either "ccleaner portable" and/or REVO Pro. Restarting in safe mode and then normal mode corrected those issues each time. Assuming part of the problem is related to "ccleaner" and maybe REVO Pro but not sure about either.

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