Solved Unable to Retain Icon Appearance in Some Icons

Hello! I just joined with high hopes that someone can help me. I have posted this on another Forum but when I saw this Forum, I thought you might be able to help since I use Vista.

Indeed, I was brought here by reviewing two potential 'solutions' to my problem that have previously been posted. They are:

Corrupted Icons on Windows Vista
How To Harvest, Restore, & Retain Icons on Vista

My problem is this: I am trying to put some of my most used websites on my desktop as shortcuts. When I do this using Internet Explorer (IE), I find the website, right click, select create shortcut, (then a box comes up saying 'Do you want to create a shortcut to the desktop?' Yes, I do. And one is created with a logo that is unique to that website.

This is what I want-to create the shortcuts onto my desktop with each shortcut being represented by its distinctive website logo. IE will do this for me. (I like using Firefox but I have not found a right click option that says Create Shortcut using Firefox-so I have to use IE).

But there is something afoul going on behind the scenes.

It seems that my desktop icons become corrupted somehow and revert back to the infamous Internet Explorer blue 'e' generic icon.

Sometimes I can correct this by redoing the shortcut routine. Sometimes it does not work at all for other icons. (I have one desktop icon that is totally locked up in the blue 'e' and will not-for any reason-revert back to its distinctive icon.)

Other icons are not affected at all and have never been affected and are holding steady-no ill effects yet to them.

I have been reviewing possible solutions to this and what I have tried so far has not worked. In fact, I don't know a lot about how to visualize this problem. I have read and heard that for some reason the icon image file (wherever that is) is not picking up the icon I want to be using and so it reverts to generic 'e' icons (or generic Firefox icons).

I have also been supplied by many people on how to create my own icons. Many thanks. But what I want is to be able to get the website icons to hold fast to my desktop-not have to re-create a website icon that is already available. There must be a pathway to solving this problem-to make IE or Firefox put the individual shortcut icons onto my desktop and get them to stay there like they are and not go changing.

I hope I have made myself understandable in my request for help and I eagerly await any responses. Thanks.

Hello MessaLine, and welcome to Vista Forums.

One of the options in the tutorial below may be able to help you with this.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/109883-internet-shortcut.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Thanks for the reply. At first, the first 'Method' in the webpage you referred me to did not work. I am happy to say however, that the first 'option' did work. That option involved changing the DPI (Dots per Inch) for the screen resolution and fonts. This is working so far. I remain dubious for how long it will stay working however.

I have had so many ups and downs with this problem sometimes halfway working, sometimes not working at all, and sometimes nothing wrong at all that I am worried that as I clean my computers' system, or add other programs here and there to my system, that these icons may mess up again. They could even mess up the next time I turn my computer back on!

Anyway, thanks for the help and the many options that the webpage gave me. It is nice to know there are many more thing I can try if this problem reoccurs. For now, however, I can consider this case closed.

For now.

Thanks again.

You're welcome Messaline. I'm happy to hear that it seems to be sorted for now.

It's bacccck! The fix didn't last 2 hours when one of my icons winked out and returned to the IE 'e'. And when this has happened before, none of the previous fixes want to work. In other words, I have to find a new way to tackle the problem.

I moved on to the next help suggestion which was to try and Printscreen the webpage into MS Paint. Unfortunately, I don't know how to get my printscreen button to work nor do I know anything about how to use Paint. Can anyone help here?

I have a combination button consisting of home / prt sc (which I guess means printscreen) and that button is located across the top of my keyboard (fourth from the right). I have not practiced using this printscreen function but once before and I did not get it to work then. Can someone help me about using the printscreen button?

And I have never used MS Paint so I need a tutorial there also. Thanks.

The next suggestion was to right click an open area of desktop and select New>Shortcut. Then type in the path to the browser and after that type the website and this creates a blank looking shortcut to the desktop which you then select an icon for.

Well, I'm not too familiar with how to find the path to my browser and when I tried, a box popped up saying this path doesn't exist. So I picked the website I wanted from a drop down box and a shortcut appeared on my desktop.

But when I tried to do the next step-right click on the new desktop shortcut and select Change The Icon, there is no Change The Icon to do so. So I must have done something wrong.

Even if I get this far and get to Change The Icon, I don't know how to change it to the icon I want to see. I am simply trying to get the website logo icon to go onto my desktop-not a bunch of thousands of icons to choose from. I don't know how to put the website logo icon into the box along with the thousands of icons to choose from so that I can choose that one. Can anyone help there?

Yes, this problem is back and this time it is the other icon that has changed. The troublesome website icon that was giving me trouble is doing fine, so far.

It makes me wonder if the problem was never eliminated. I feel like I simply found a run around way of getting around the problem-not eliminating it. Can the IE 'e' default icon that keeps usurping my icons be deleted? Would that keep this problem from happening? If so, how?

Thanks for the opportunity to air my problems. I hope there is a permanent solution out there from someone.

Just a followup with additional information.....I had managed to get my icons onto the desktop using Firefox this time by putting them into Favorites and dragging them to the desktop. Previously I had used IE. When Firefox "locked up" this time like IE did before, I tried switching back to IE just now and try again. It worked. But I'm sure it won't last. Somehow the pathway to doing this is being blocked off eventually as I use my computer-entering and leaving websites and just general use of my computer. I feel that the pathway is being corrupted by something I am doing that may or may not be normal operating procedure. I couldn't say.

But this time I pasted the desktop icons I like into my Documents and also Pictures folders before they disappear again. I am hoping that by doing so, I can use those pictures (icons) by putting them into an Icon Editor program (I understand there are many free ones out there) and recreate my icons that way. Do you think that will work?

Or is there any way I can (or need) to convert those icon pictures I saved to icon files with .ico extensions? How would I do that? That way they might be more easily recognized by my computer when it comes to replacing them to the desktop.

Is that possible? Thanks.

Messaline,

You can use a program like the trial version of Axialis IconWorkshop to create the 256x256 Vista icons with, then use METHOD TWO in the tutorial below to create your own shortcut with the new icon.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/109883-internet-shortcut.html

Messaline said:

I moved on to the next help suggestion which was to try and Printscreen the webpage into MS Paint. Unfortunately, I don't know how to get my printscreen button to work nor do I know anything about how to use Paint. Can anyone help here?

I have a combination button consisting of home / prt sc (which I guess means printscreen) and that button is located across the top of my keyboard (fourth from the right). I have not practiced using this printscreen function but once before and I did not get it to work then. Can someone help me about using the printscreen button?

And I have never used MS Paint so I need a tutorial there also. Thanks.

Click to expand...

In regard to the Print Screen and MS Paint portion of your question -- just in case you have to use either of these again, here's some help.

First of all, you may need to press the Fn key on your keyboard, along with the Print Screen button. That is frequently the case. Try it and see if that works.

Second, although MS Paint was suggested, you can pretty much use any imaging program, or even easier, you can paste your printed screen image to NotePad or WordPad. Try any of these instructions below, and there's a short list of other imaging programs as well.

To print the ENTIRE SCREEN: click on PrtScrn + Fn on your keyboard. This captures and stores in the Clipboard everything showing on your screen, including opened property menus and dialogues. If you then open NotePad, WordPad, Paint, or just about any imaging program you can use the Paste function to see the captured image.

To print just the ACTIVE WINDOW on the screen: Use Alt + PrtScrn + Fn. Copies only the ACTIVE window. So, you would get whatever window is open, neatly cut out already, on the Clipboard ready to paste in to your favorite image app.

To print the INTERNET SCREEN + MORE
If you are capturing something on internet you can always press F11, make as many captures as necessary and then stitch all together using Photoshop or any other program. Use the PrintScreen button and Ctrl+V shortcut. It's fast.

OTHER IMAGE CAPTURING PROGRAMS
1. CamStudio
2. ScreenHunter, which can do a scroll capture, but only on the Pro version, which is of course not free. Check "Activate Auto Scroll", then use "Capture Window Control."
3. PicPick - Check "Activate Auto Scroll", then use "Capture Window Control."

Hi and again thanks....I appreciate the advice and help. I can use these tools in my fight against this icon threat next time it happens.

Meanwhile, I have created another problem in trying to solve this one I am not sure where to post this new problem so if you want, can you move this thread to the appropriate area if that is possible? Or tell me what the proper procedure is to do here when continuing to ask questions? Thanks.

Anyway, my question concerns what happened when I tried to increase the font and DPI size trying to cure the icon problem. I like the size increase up to a point but in so doing, I have chopped off part of my Shutdown box.

When I want to shut down Vista, I hit the Start button and move over three places-past the 'Keep Your Session In Memory...button; past the Lock This Computer button; until I get to the next button which allows me the Shut Down options.

That button has been chopped off due to my increased screen resolution. And I only increased my resolution by 1 % from 100 to 101. I would like to keep the increase in resolution but at the same time I would like to regain my Shut Down button. Can anyone tell me how to correct this anomaly?

I have reviewed some of the previous posts and help about how to shut dowm the computer alternatively. For instance, I like the Alt + F4 option and I will probably use this until I get the Shut Down button fixed.

I hope there is a fix to this problem. Thank you again.

Messaline said:

...my question concerns what happened when I tried to increase the font and DPI size trying to cure the icon problem. I like the size increase up to a point but in so doing, I have chopped off part of my Shutdown box.

When I want to shut down Vista, I hit the Start button and move over three places-past the 'Keep Your Session In Memory...button; past the Lock This Computer button; until I get to the next button which allows me the Shut Down options.

That button has been chopped off due to my increased screen resolution. And I only increased my resolution by 1 % from 100 to 101. I would like to keep the increase in resolution but at the same time I would like to regain my Shut Down button. Can anyone tell me how to correct this anomaly?

Click to expand...

Messaline, I don't know if there is a fix to your resolution problem -- it may depend on what method you used to increase your screen resolution. I too, like the higher screen resolution that gives me larger objects, images, and font sizes, and am sometimes frustrated when sections of the screen are cut off --- in those instances, I just temporarily decrease my resolution size, do the function I need, and then increase the resolution size again. If you are shutting down your computer every day, clearly that would not work well for you to have to do that every time you needed to shut down.

Here are some work-arounds, and other ways to increase your screen resolution, font sizes and screen images. I used my #1 suggestion to increase my DPI, and it did not cut off the computer shut-down selections. The #2 suggestion is for IE8 only, and for me, it's worth having IE8 for this function alone!

Let us know if any of the suggestions helped you.

1. DPI - Right click on Desktop, Personalize, On Personalization Page, go to left column to: Adjust Font size – DPI, DPI Scaling: Click on Large scale (120 DPI), and click Apply.

2. At the lower right hand corner of every IE web page, there’s a Zoom control that lets you increase the size of every web page, and it stays at that Zoom setting for every page. I keep mine at 125%.

3. Open Internet Explorer, go to Tools, Internet Options, General, Accessibility, Select Ignore font styles specified on web pages, check boxes and click OK, then Apply, then OK.

4. Open Internet Explorer, go to Tools, Internet Options, Advanced, uncheck all three:
Reset text size to Medium for new windows and tabs, and
Reset text size to Medium while Zooming, and
Reset Zoom level to 100% for new windows and tabs

5. Open Internet Explorer, click the Page button, click Text Size, and then select the size you want i.e. Large (Largest may be too large).

6. Ease of Access Center – Go to: Control Panel, and Explore all settings. Under the following heading, Make things on the screen larger, select: Change the size of text + icons. This takes you to the dpi settings screen.

7. If you have a scroll wheel on your mouse, use command/ctrl + your scroll on a web page to increase the font size.

8. Magnifier – For those instances when you need to magnify a certain portion of the screen - go to Start, in the Search pane, type in "magnifier" + click the program at the top. (To read more about Magnifier go to Start, click "Help & Support" on the right hand side, type in "magnifier.") Magnifier is actually located at: Start, All Programs, Accessories, Ease of Access, Magnifier.

PS Thanks very much for the rep+.

Thanks for those increase screen and font sizes helpful hints. I will try them when I have more time-perhaps this weekend.

More info and observation concerning my original icon problem has just emerged.

I just printed out your helpful hints using Notepad. I wanted to highlight your important points before printing and I thought about putting it through MS Paint and see if I can highlight it that way. Remember, I have never used Paint before and so this was an experiment for me. Anyway, I tried unsuccessfully to put the Notepad document into Paint.

What I discovered was a route to the Pictures folder where I had stored pictures of my desktop icons and I discovered that one of my icons had reverted back to a Firefox orange fox on globe icon. In fact, this route to the Pictures folder [and other folders such as Recent Changes(all through Paint)]seems to be lagging behind in having all of the contents displayed.

However, I can navigate to that same Pictures folder by a different route and that same logo icon is untouched. It is OK. And my desktop icon is OK. And the icons are OK in my Documents folder as well.

So, why is one route to the various folders (through Paint) not able to contain the entire contents of those folders as another more direct route to the very same folders? Maybe my icon did not change to the fox but maybe through this Paint route the icon never went in correctly?

In any case, this is a concern to me. Can Vista not handle its own many functions? Is that why it is so unpopular? That aside, I wonder if anyone can offer advice about this latest icon blip of mine?

Is it likely that this insidious fox and IE 'e' can dig their way into any preventive measure I try to take? How can I stop this? Did anyone know if those icons can be deleted or if so, would IE and Firefox simply utilize a default-default second round icon to replace the first deleted icon-and so on it goes?

Thanks. This just seems to get deeper and deeper.....