Folder Icons Have Disappeared!

Hi, I have found this forum to generally provide good answer to people's problems and so decided to sign up for some help.

Recently (sometime within the past 5 days) my folder icons have completely disappeared and been replaced with those boring yellow folder icons. I did have some custom icons but mostly they were the default Windows ones. Here's a screenshot of what I'm talking about:


And no, the folders are not empty (far from it ).

[DEL]So I tried to go into the folder properties and change the icon manually when I noticed that that setting was missing (if it even existed in the first place, as now I am not quite sure).[/DEL]
Scratch that, I just checked and it's there for most folders, just not the Documents folder.

I have tried uninstalling recently installed programs (well, I think I tried all of them). Tried clearing icon cache, changing settings and numerous other things and can't seem to restore the icons!
If worst comes to worst, I'll have to do a system restore but I've recently installed a load of games etc. and really don't want to download them all again. <.<

Any help would be greatly appreciated,
Thanks!

Perhaps this will help
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/117229-icon-cache-rebuild.html

Run a full anti virus scan
Download and run a full scan with malwarebytes.

Try going back with a system restore.

richc46 said:

Perhaps this will help
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/117229-icon-cache-rebuild.html

Run a full anti virus scan
Download and run a full scan with malwarebytes.

Try going back with a system restore.

Click to expand...

I have tried the cache rebuild with no results.

Doing a full scan with Malwarebytes now (1/2 in so far) but I don't think I've got any viruses as I'm pretty safe with what I download.

So, if the viruses doesn't pick up anything, I should just do a system restore?

Thats what I would do. If it does not work we will investigate further

OK, the scan finished and it found 9 trojans, fortunately I know for certain that all of these are false positives.

I have tried System Restore twice now and seem to be getting this error message on reboot:


So, I don't know if that's related. Going to try one last time, will report back tomorrow.

Click this link for an improved tool to restore the icons of the personal user shell folders

Hi

Can you please do the following.
Click Start Menu -> Control Panel -> Folder Options -> and then the View Tab.
Uncheck the box Hide protected operating system files.
You will get a warning, but continue.
Now right-click in the Start Menu on Favorites and choose Open.
You should now be able to see a file named desktop.ini
If you right-click on this file and choose Edit, it should display the following contents :

[.ShellClassInfo]
LocalizedResourceName=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21796
IconResource=%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll,-115
IconFile=%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll
IconIndex=-173

It's the desktop.ini file that's responsible for the display of the icon on your folders.
If the file desktop.ini isn't present in de folders, then that's probably the cause why your folders have lost their icon.
Check the other folders too, and keep us posted.

Sweet

Sweet said:

Hi

Can you please do the following.
Click Start Menu -> Control Panel -> Folder Options -> and then the View Tab.
Uncheck the box Hide protected operating system files.
You will get a warning, but continue.
Now right-click in the Start Menu on Favorites and choose Open.
You should now be able to see a file named desktop.ini
If you right-click on this file and choose Edit, it should display the following contents :

[.ShellClassInfo]
LocalizedResourceName=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21796
IconResource=%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll,-115
IconFile=%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll
IconIndex=-173

It's the desktop.ini file that's responsible for the display of the icon on your folders.
If the file desktop.ini isn't present in de folders, then that's probably the cause why your folders have lost their icon.
Check the other folders too, and keep us posted.

Sweet

Click to expand...

[DEL]Ahh, at the moment desktop.ini only contains this:

Maybe that's why? About to add those extra lines that it's missing, will post back in a minute.

Edit: Also, I noticed that the first line ends in -21786 not -21796 , should I change this as well?


Edit2: I may have opened the wrong desktop.ini >.<
The one I have just edited is located here:
C:\Users\Isaac.Dell-XPS720\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu[/DEL]

Nvm, just found where the file is. Yep it contains all those lines already.

Click this link for an improved tool to restore the icons of the personal user shell folders

Hello

If you have some patience,
I am writing a program that will write the dekstop.ini's into your folders.
I've already done
Contacts
Desktop
Documents
Downloads and Favorites
Give me until tomorrow at the latest and the program will be ready.

Thank you
Sweet

Sweet said:

Hello

If you have some patience,
I am writing a program that will write the dekstop.ini's into your folders.
I've already done
Contacts
Desktop
Documents
Downloads and Favorites
Give me until tomorrow at the latest and the program will be ready.

Thank you
Sweet

Click to expand...

Wow, thank you! And no, I don't mind waiting, take as long as you want.

Click this link for an improved tool to restore the icons of the personal user shell folders

Hi

Here you go,
FldrIcon32.exe will restore the desktop.ini files in your user folders.
FldrIcon32+.exe does the same, but also restarts Windows Explorer.
Restarting Windows Explorer is sometimes necessary for the changes to take effect.
I'm not sure this will help, because you said the desktop.ini files with relevant data were present in your folders.
In any case, it's worth trying.
If this does not help we must seek the cause somewhere else.
Keep us informed.

Good luck
Sweet

Sweet said:

Hi

Here you go,
FldrIcon32.exe will restore the desktop.ini files in your user folders.
FldrIcon32+.exe does the same, but also restarts Windows Explorer.
Restarting Windows Explorer is sometimes necessary for the changes to take effect.
I'm not sure this will help, because you said the desktop.ini files with relevant data were present in your folders.
In any case, it's worth trying.
If this does not help we must seek the cause somewhere else.
Keep us informed.

Good luck
Sweet

Click to expand...

Sorry, the didn't work. I have managed to fix the problem though by doing a system restore while in safe mode.
No idea what caused the problem, thanks anyway for all your help.
Wizzerzak.

Click this link for an improved tool to restore the icons of the personal user shell folders

Hi

Glad to hear that your problem is solved
For informational purposes I would like to add something.
Another cause of the problem could have been the attribute of the folders, which should be read only.
Just in case anyone else has this problem, after restoring the desktop.ini files,
you should set the attribute of the user shell folders to read only.
First open a Command Prompt.
Then enter the following commands one by one,
and press Enter after each command you've entered.
(Needless to say, that you should not enter all the commands if there is only one folder to restore.)
(You can copy and then paste the commands below in the Command Prompt.)

attrib +r -s -h "%USERPROFILE%\Contacts"

attrib +r -s -h "%USERPROFILE%\Desktop"

attrib +r -s -h "%USERPROFILE%\Documents"

attrib +r -s -h "%USERPROFILE%\Downloads"

attrib +r -s -h "%USERPROFILE%\Favorites"

attrib +r -s -h "%USERPROFILE%\Links"

attrib +r -s -h "%USERPROFILE%\Music"

attrib +r -s -h "%USERPROFILE%\Pictures"

attrib +r -s -h "%USERPROFILE%\Saved Games"

attrib +r -s -h "%USERPROFILE%\Searches"

attrib +r -s -h "%USERPROFILE%\Videos"


Kind regards
Sweet