What causes desktop shortcut icons to randomly change?

Question

I've noticed that a some shortcut icons on my desktop will randomly change to other icons on my desktop.

Example: I have a shortcut to Cygwin, Git, Computer, Documents, Chrome, etc. The Cygwin shortcut will start off as the correct icon, however, after some restarts the Cygwin icon will change to the Chrome icon, then the Computer icon, then the Git Bash icon. It's completely random and never stops changing. Once the icon changes from the original, it never goes back to it's original state.

I'm using Windows 7 RTM Enterprise and I can remember this happening since Windows XP.

Any thoughts?

Solution 1

This is usually because ShellIconCache is corrupt.

Solution 2

I have read somewhere in the distant past about icon corruption, but that's not very useful, I know.

In earlier versions of Windows (XP, 2000, 9x), I would use TweakUI to change the arrow overlay for shortcuts, and that usually forced the icon cache to rebuild.

Then there is this: Corrupted Shortcut Icons on the Desktop When Switching to Large Icons, but it's probably not what you're looking for.

Comments

[Joshua K]

ryan, mind selecting one of these as a solution if you have been able to resolve this?

[Ryan Kearney]

I reformatted less than 24 hours ago with Windows 7 Enterprise x64, I've only installed Chrome, Visual Studio 2008 Professional, MSDN, and Direct X SDK March 2009. The icon in question at the moment is one to DevKitPro, started normally, than I installed Adobe Reader and now it's the same icon as the users folder on my desktop (The folder with the guy with the green shirt) Seems strange that the icon cache could get corrupted so easily.

[Ryan Kearney]

Also, on a side note, I just realized switching to Large Icons does nothing, however, switching to Small Icons restores the appropriate icon.

[miku]

So moving from small to large and back again is a workaround. To answer your previous comment, though, I've seen icon corruption on Windows happen very quickly.

[Ryan Kearney]

As of right now I have the following shorcuts. User Folder Computer Recycle Bin Adobe Reader 9 Shortcut DevKitPro Shortcut Google Chrome Shortcut Remember The Milk Google Gears Shortcut 2 Folder Shortcuts Now the DevKitPro is the only icon that changes. Other shortcuts I remember having problems with is, I think, Cygwin. Now, I just deleted and rebuilt the icon cache and the icon was restored, however, after maximizing Chrome and doing a little web surfing, I minimized Chrome to find out DevKitPro has taken the Adobe Reader icon. Did a little more web surfing, and now it became the RTM icon.

[Ryan Kearney]

The proper icon will ONLY appear if I use small icons. Once I go back to Medium or Large the icons become a random icon on my desktop again.

[miku]

Try find a tool that will rebuild the icon cache. That is my only suggestion.

[Ryan Kearney]

I've rebuilt the cache, and after just a few minutes the icon goes back to a random icon taken from the desktop. I should point out that I've only ever seen this happen on the desktop, never had a problem with icons in folders. This leads me to believe that it isn't a problem with corruption at all.

[user10547]

Wow I was hoping it was an easy exe/dll mixup. I have never seen that happen but I also don't use the software you listed.

[miku]

As a matter of interest, I am experiencing font corruption on the Desktop like yours after I install something (Win 7 Enterprise x64), but pressing F5 refreshes them to their defaults again.