General Rebuild Icon Cache in Windows 11

OAT · Feb 10, 2023

Diceman2037 said:
Taskkill argument order is wrong, /F needs to be before /IM.

> taskkill /IM explorer.exe /F
ERROR: Invalid argument/option - '/F'.

I prefer using tskill
tskill explorer <enter>
It does not not require arguments.

Brink · Feb 10, 2023

Diceman2037 said:
Taskkill argument order is wrong, /F needs to be before /IM.

> taskkill /IM explorer.exe /F
ERROR: Invalid argument/option - '/F'.

Hello,

Doesn't seem to make any difference for the order.

Code:

taskkill [/s <computer> [/u [<domain>\]<username> [/p [<password>]]]] {[/fi <filter>] [...] [/pid <processID> | /im <imagename>]} [/f] [/t]

taskkill

Reference article for the taskkill command, which ends one or more tasks or processes.

learn.microsoft.com

Diceman2037 · Feb 20, 2023

Brink said:
Hello,

Doesn't seem to make any difference for the order.

Code:

taskkill [/s <computer> [/u [<domain>\]<username> [/p [<password>]]]] {[/fi <filter>] [...] [/pid <processID> | /im <imagename>]} [/f] [/t]

taskkill

Reference article for the taskkill command, which ends one or more tasks or processes.

learn.microsoft.com

View attachment 52349

Looks like its a Powershell 7 issue.

cadfael · Apr 18, 2023

Edit: Found the answer: clearing icon cache is not effective for icons with thumbnails without doing this: Clear and Reset Thumbnail Cache in Windows 11 Tutorial

Original question:

None of the methods has worked for me, or at least not in a useful way. I see the updated icon in the list of choices when changing the icon of a shortcut, but when I actually choose the new icon and click okay, explorer just displays the old icon. I've restarted and deleted the cache all the ways mentioned in the top post and even some of the comments, but windows explorer won't use the updated icon outside of the icon chooser settings. I'm on version 22621.1555 of win 11.

Brink · Apr 19, 2023

cadfael said:
Edit: Found the answer: clearing icon cache is not effective for icons with thumbnails without doing this: Clear and Reset Thumbnail Cache in Windows 11 Tutorial

Original question:

None of the methods has worked for me, or at least not in a useful way. I see the updated icon in the list of choices when changing the icon of a shortcut, but when I actually choose the new icon and click okay, explorer just displays the old icon. I've restarted and deleted the cache all the ways mentioned in the top post and even some of the comments, but windows explorer won't use the updated icon outside of the icon chooser settings. I'm on version 22621.1555 of win 11.

Great news, and welcome.

Usually:

Files = icons

Folders = thumbnails

LesFerch · Jan 21, 2024

Diceman2037 said:
> taskkill /IM explorer.exe /F
ERROR: Invalid argument/option - '/F'.

I recreated this error in a Cmd window. It's due to a hidden UTF-8 character being picked up in the copy. If you paste and see what looks to be a trailing space, just backspace one character and it's fine.

@Brink The trailing byte sequence that gets copied is E2 80 8B. Maybe there's something there that can be cleaned up. The problem exists with all five code lines in Option 3.

Brink · Jan 22, 2024

LesFerch said:
I recreated this error in a Cmd window. It's due to a hidden UTF-8 character being picked up in the copy. If you paste and see what looks to be a trailing space, just backspace one character and it's fine.

@Brink The trailing byte sequence that gets copied is E2 80 8B. Maybe there's something there that can be cleaned up. The problem exists with all five code lines in Option 3.

Usually, you can click/tap on the command to have it automatically copied to the clipboard without the space getting added at the end.

I've noticed the space at the end happens if one double clicks on the command to highlight it, then copy and paste.

abactuon · Jan 22, 2024

I've been using the software for a long time

Releases · crazy-max/IconsRefresh

Refresh icons on Desktop, Start Menu and Taskbar. Contribute to crazy-max/IconsRefresh development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

LesFerch · Jan 22, 2024

@Brink I was testing with some different icons and needed to refresh the icon cache to see the changes. I first tried your script and found that I was still seeing the old icons (even with a reboot). I then tried the reset icon cache option in Winaero Tweaker. Same problem, I then tried the this tool. Same problem.

However, the tool @abactuon recommended worked perfectly without even killing Explorer, but I also had success with nircmd shellrefresh. Since nircmd.exe is 45K and supported, whereas IconsRefresh.exe is 1178K (written in Go) and is abandoned, my vote goes to nircmd.

NirCmd - Windows command line tool

NirCmd is a small utility that allows you to do many useful tasks from command-line, without displaying any user interface: change your display settings, turn off your monitor, open the door of your CD-ROM drive, and more...

www.nirsoft.net

Just for a sanity check, I made a batch file that refreshes the icons reliably. The two key changes are the introduction of a 2 second delay after killing Explorer, and not checking existence. I also found that I only needed to delete files from one location. Here's the script:

Code:

taskkill /IM explorer.exe /F
timeout /t 2 >nul
del /A /F /Q %localappdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\iconcache*.db
start explorer.exe

Update: I asked ChatGPT to write a C# program, using the Windows Shell API to do a full refresh. This is what it produced. Works for me.

Code:

using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

class Program
{
    [DllImport("shell32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto, SetLastError = true)]
    public static extern void SHChangeNotify(int wEventId, int uFlags, IntPtr dwItem1, IntPtr dwItem2);

    static void Main()
    {
        SHChangeNotify(0x08000000, 0x1000, IntPtr.Zero, IntPtr.Zero);
    }
}

LesFerch · Jan 24, 2024

@Brink I tested your updated script. It still didn't work, but it works with this additional change:

Code:

del /A /F /Q "%iconcache%"
del /A /F /Q "%iconcache_x%"

Also, I think you can remove the system restart. I've never had to do that.

Brink · Jan 25, 2024

LesFerch said:
@Brink I tested your updated script. It still didn't work, but it works with this additional change:

Code:

del /A /F /Q "%iconcache%" del /A /F /Q "%iconcache_x%"

Also, I think you can remove the system restart. I've never had to do that.