Windows 7 Icons Blacked Out

C

Cheemag

Extraordinary Member
Joined
Jul 22, 2010
Messages
228
Hello again,

My Windows 7 Pro machine started up with all the desktop icons (except three 'MS' ones) blacked out (black square where the icon should be).

"Rebuild Shell Icon Cache" on right-click menu on desktop does nothing; they're still black. Restarting Windows Explorer doesn't help either.

How to proceed?

Regards

Cheemag
 
Solution
Hi Cheemag,

have you installed anything new recently?

New anti virus application maybe?

Have you made any changes to Windows 7 itself (recently)?

Check on how corrupted your system is by running the system file checker:

Look in the start menu for command prompt, right click on it, choose properties followed by run as admin. Type:
sfc /scannow
Press enter and await results.
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Neemobeer said:
What application are you using to customize the date/time and your icons look different, are you using some kind of customization software and if so try uninstalling it.
Click to expand...
Nice spot Neemobeer, I was thinking along the same lines. Whenever I tried using GUI changing apps it also seemed to break something so I quickly learnt they best left well alone. We'll see I guess depending on the op posts..
 
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This is a new machine I was preparing to replace this one. Everything is new to it and most applications are common to both.both !

The machine it's replacing has a similar problem except that the black icons go away on their own accord after 30 seconds or so.

I'm using Kaspersky Internet Security 2016 on both machines.

I've run sfc /scannow from an admin prompt and got this:

Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired
them. Details are included in the CBS.Log windir\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For
example C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log

That log's too long to post here, but sfc corrected at least two corrupt files as far as I can see, one was apparently a wallpaper file, which may or may not be relevant.

Regards

Cheemag
 
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Neemobeer said:
What application are you using to customize the date/time and your icons look different, are you using some kind of customization software and if so try uninstalling it.
Click to expand...

Date and time? "WebTime" used more or less occasionally to check that I have the Net.

Look different? You can say that again, they're all black!

Regards
Cheemag
 
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I think Neemobeer is referring to this cheemag:

Apps that change the os like these can mess with other system functions.
 
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Neemobeer said:
What application are you using to customize the date/time and your icons look different, are you using some kind of customization software and if so try uninstalling it.
Click to expand...

I've been using that Desktop Clock for decades under a few OSs, has never caused any problems.

Cheemag
 
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Cheemag said:
As I said, I've been using that clock for a very long time without any problems.
Click to expand...
You did? Oops sorry about that.

Hmm is there anything else which you use to change how the system looks?

Other than that have you tried either removing or disabling Kaspersky?

As the icons eventually reappear check see what's starting up with Windows using Task manager.
 
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Neemobeer said:
What application are you using to customize the date/time and your icons look different, are you using some kind of customization software and if so try uninstalling it.
Click to expand...

Following a disasterous OS failure after doing a disc cleanup from which I could not recover, I re-installed the OS and am now proceeding to bring it up to date. The icons problem has gone away, at least for the moment.

Which leaves me with a truly massive update problem !!

Regards,

Cheemag
 
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I'd tried to make that machine replace this one by duplicating most of what's on this one, mainly by re-downloading applications where possible.

I didn't try disabling Kaspersky, but it might be worth asking them if they've encountered this problem before.

However, as I've re-installed the OS, unless and until the problem reappears, the cause will remain unknown.

I noted that although the batch file I used (above) is supposed to have rebuilt the icon cache (and did indeed bring back the real icons, at the end there was no IconCache.db file in /Local then or later.

As the icons were correctly displayed, I wonder from where the system actually obtained them - they must have been available somewhere else other than in IconCache.db !

Regards,

Cheemag
 
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