Application icons are gone

Question

Today I have installed an exe icon changer application unfortunately this application did not work as expected, so I decided to uninstall this...

I can't remember the application name, but I remember that while I was uninstalling this, there was an message on the uninstaller saying: Restoring icons from windows-cache. and uninstaller did freeze with 100% progress bar, after restarting my PC I can not see any application icons anymore.

Here is an screen-shot from my start menu, the same happends on my desktop.

/sorry for my English.

Answer 1

Whenever icons or thumbnails are not displaying correctly in Windows, there are several steps to try/check:

1. Rebuild the icon cache:
   • Automatically:
     1. Run the Disk Cleanup tool (cleanmgr.exe)
     2. Select Thumbnails, then OK
     3. Reboot?
        
        
   • Manually from Explorer:
     1. Open your local application data folder:
        • 2000/XP: %userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data
        • Vista/7  : %localappdata%
     2. Delete the file IconCache.db (you will need to have hidden files visible)
     3. Reboot
        
        
   • Manually from the command-prompt:
     1. Open a command-prompt (cmd.exe)
     2. Change to local-app-data: C:\> cd "<dir from step 1 above>"
     3. Delete the icon cache:       C:\…Local…> del /a IconCache.db
     4. Reboot
        
        
        
2. Check for custom icon-handlers:
   1. Open a command-prompt (cmd.exe)
   2. Type assoc EXT where EXT is the extension of the problem file-type e.g.:
      C:\> assoc .exe
.exe=exefile
   3. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\<file-type>\ShellEx, where file-type is the result you got from the previous command (e.g., exefile)
   4. See if there is an IconHandler subkey/branch under ShellEx
      (Some file-types such as shortcuts (.lnk files) need an icon-handler)
   5. If so, delete it or just rename it (e.g., to #IconHandler, IconHandler-, etc.)
   6. Refresh the desktop/window with the files
      
      
      
3. Check for “Old Icon”s:
   1. Find the extension association as in steps 2.2-2.3
   2. Navigate to the CLSID in the IconHandler (e.g. HKCR\CLSID\{42042206-2D85-11D3-8CFF-005004838597})
   3. Check if there is an Old Icon subkey, if so, expand it
   4. Examine the subkeys under Old Icon and make sure that the DefaultIcons are correct (they cannot contain quotes and must contain an icon index—even if just ,0—for non-icon files such as .dll, .exe, or .icl)
      
      
      
4. Set the icon to “self” for files containing their icon (e.g., .exe, .ico, .bmp…):
   • Using the registry editor:
     1. Determine the file-type as in steps 2.1 - 2.2 above
     2. Run the registry editor (regedit.exe)
     3. Navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\<file-type>\DefaultIcon
     4. Set the default value to "%1"
     5. Refresh
        
        
   • Using a file:
     1. Create a plain-text file with a text-editor (e.g., notepad.exe)
     2. Type or copy-paste the following (remember to replace the file-type):
        REGEDIT4                               
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\<file-type>\DefaultIcon]
@="\"%1\""                             
     3. Save the file as Reset_Icon.reg (not Reset_Icon.reg.txt)
     4. Double-click the .reg file to merge it into the registry
     5. Refresh
        
        
        
5. Ensure that thumbnails are enabled (Vista and up):
   1. Open the Folder Options dialog:
      • Open shell:::{6DFD7C5C-2451-11d3-A299-00C04F8EF6AF}
        or
        
      • From an Explorer window, the menu Tools->Folder Options…
   2. Select the View tab
   3. Un-check the Always show icons, never thumbnails option
   4. Refresh

Answer 2

Since all normal procedures to fix icons problems (and detailled here by Synetech) wont works, I supposed the problem comes from remaining elements of the failed uninstallation of this unknown application...

Suggestion #1: Try this My folder and application icons on Windows 7 are generic N.B.: same of the Synetech solution #1 except with this difference: «change your screen bit depth to 16 bit and then back to 32 bit»

Suggestion #2: Try this Ms Fix it: «Fix problems with programs that can't be installed or uninstalled»

Suggestion #3: Try a system restore…

Hope this help.