Windows 10 Start Menu App Icons Replaced by Picture Icons

Question

So I recently noticed a strange problem with Windows 10's default apps (so the ones that come with windows 10, not the ones you set). Most apps which come with Windows 10's icons in Windows Search have been replaced with a "blank" icon. (See below)

Strangely it doesn't happen with other apps (like office apps) but only occurs with the apps which come with the operating system.

Another Example

The only 3rd party app this bug affects is the Sophos Home Premium Antivirus (although this issue happened before I installed the Antivirus)

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

For this answer you'll need another Admin user different from the user experiencing this issue. :

1. Log into your other admin account. Open registry, Make a new string value in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
2. Name it MaxCachedIcons, type the value as 2048
3. Delete the file C:\Users\<User Name>\AppData\Local\IconCache.db where the "username" is the user facing problems.

There is a workaround if you don't have/don't want to make another user, however it might work, or might not. Do the 1 & 2 steps as it is. Then for step three, do it in the style you did here, Two times, ie, once more after it is rebuilt, after logging off and on.

Answer 2

Maybe it can happen for any kind of third party handler of .png icons. Open regedit as Administrator and go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.png\shellex then remove any GUID looking subkey there.

Answer 3

Try to reinstall all the Microsoft Store apps by in an elevated PowerShell session running the following command:

Get-AppXPackage | Foreach {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register "$($_.InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml"}

Reboot after running the command.

Answer 4

Try these:

Attempt 1

Open Command Prompt (cmd.exe) then run:

del /a /f "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\IconCache.db"

cd /d "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer"
attrib -h iconcache*.db
del /f iconcache*.db
y

Reboot your PC, if it didn't worked continue to another attempt

Attempt 2

Open command prompt (cmd.exe) as administrator

run the following commands:

dism /online /cleanup-image /checkhealth
dism /online /cleanup-image /scanhealth
dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

sfc /scannow

Then reboot your PC and check if it worked. If not, continue to another attempt.

Attempt 3

Try configuring your display settings to recommended by windows Right-click on desktop and click display settings. Then change scaling, display, refresh rate, etc. to recommended.

Reboot and check if it worked. If not, go to another step.

Attempt 4

(skip this step if you do not have Google Drive installed)

Sometimes syncing files by google drive might cause Icons to display improperly. So, to fix this issue, Open Task Manager, Go to Startup tab, then right click on Google Drive then disable.

Reboot and check if it worked.

And last

Wait... there are many other things you can try, if none of these worked, create a new user account and move your files into it.

Answer 5

For anyone still arriving on this page (I know I did), the solution that worked for me was what @dheerendra wrote in one of the comments, and presented in more detail here:

Some Windows 10 UWP icons not displaying on search, or in settings

You do not need to change permissions on that Registry key, most probably you don't even have to delete the GUIDs or touch the registry at all. As others have reported in the comments below, the thing that finally seems to do it, is changing the display scale (e.g. from 100% to 125%, to 150%, etc.) a few times, and this seems to rebuild the icon cache properly. 🤷🏻‍♂️