Windows 8 Windows 8.1 desktop icons all have an "x" on them!

[mrpush]

Hi,

Another new one for me. One user logs in and all desktop icons have a pinkish "X" on them in the lower left and none of the icon work, AKA, you get an error message when you click on them:

"the operation on (path to file) was started with and invalid parameter"

Nice Windows 8.1. Something new all the time!

Any ideas?

Thanks,

MP

 

[ussnorway]

are you talking about a local user of the 8.1 or a microsoft (linked to a hotmail account) user?

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

You could start by rebuilding the Icon Cache and see if that helps.
To rebuild the cache go to...

C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\IconCache.db

Cut and paste the IconCache.db file to your desktop, and reboot.

If it causes any issues copy the old one back to the original location, but it should just create a new one with no errors in it.

Have you tried re-linking the icons or creating new ones?

Pick one of them and go to Properties and and look at the Target Window and see if it points to the correct location for the program.

Try creating a new Icon for one of the programs and see it the new one works.

Right click on the Desktop, select New, Shortcut and navigate to the file for one of your non working links.

Let us know what happens.

Mike

 

[davehc]

Sometimes merely changing the theme will do the trick?

Could you right click one of the icons and post what it says in the "Properties" - target?

 

[mrpush]

Hi,

These are local user desktop items that are being redirected from server.

I removed the ICONCACHE.db, rebooted, and no change.

I created a new shortcut icon, it works fine.

All permission and such are fine and unchanged.

It appears that the desktop re-direction is not working correctly, but then it should not have any icons at all as far as I know.

The targets are correctly pointing to the redirection share and I can access such from the machine over the network.

I'm going to have to remove and reapply the redirection for this user and see what happens.

Thanks,

MP

 

[MikeHawthorne]

Hi

While I've never had all my desktop icons stop working I have had some that did just stop, for reasons that I couldn't figure out.
It's just like the address got broken some how and misdirects the link.

In those cases creating a new icon directed to the correct target file always seems to fix the problem.

Some one more into the tech side of things might have an answer, I tend to just try and remember what worked to fix things in the past.

I've been doing this since Windows 3, so I've done a lot of trial and error over the last 20 years. LOL

Mike

 

[mrpush]

Thanks Mike and others, I will tinker and post my finding.

MP