Missing Icons or Shortcuts on the Desktop or Taskbar in Windows Vista or Windows 7

 

Occassionally icons will not display correctly.  You may have a solid blank space where an icon should be on either the taskbar or the Windows desktop when using Windows Vista or Windows 7.  These icons may become corrupted for a variety of reasons, including the installation of third party software.  The following process for rebuilding the icon cache (IconCache.db) can be helpful in resolving this issue.
 

1.       Click the Start button and click on "Computer" to open a Windows Explorer window.
2.       Click on "Organize" from the Tool bar and choose "Folder and search options" to open the Folder Options window.
3.       Click on the "View" tab.
4.       Click on the selection for "Show hidden files, folders or drives" and then click on "OK".
5.       From the Windows Explorer window, navigate to the "C:\Users\username\AppData\Local" folder where "username" represents the username of the person currently logged into the computer.
6.       Find the "IconCache.db" file and delete it.
7.       Close the window and restart the computer and Windows will automatically rebuild the icon cache on reboot.

 

Rebuilding the icon cache should resolve the issue, but if not, you can troubleshoot the issue further by testing a newly created user account or by testing the system in Safe Mode.