Refreshing icons

[NewsArchive]

Hi Friedrich,

I know this has been beaten to death before, but I have a situation with
my client. We have completely changed all the icons in out
applications. They are all correct but windows is not refreshing the
silly cache, even when he uses the "Refresh desktop" function in SB - it
doesn't want to pull the correct icon for the *taskbar* so it shows the
generic "no-icon" icon!

I managed to clear the cache on my machine, but it is not something that
customers can be expected to do - it involved shutting Explorer down,
firing off a command line statement: ie4uinit.exe -ClearIconCache and
then starting explorer again! Found it here:
https://superuser.com/questions/499078/refresh-icon-cache-without-rebooting
- answer 27 more and less worked for me along with the command line above!

Note that I'm on Windows 8.1 and he is on 10, but we have had the same
problem.

Is there any way to tell Windows to just throw out whatever junk it has
in the silly cache and rebuild it? Any insights will help!

Best regards,

--
Arnor Baldvinsson
Icetips Alta LLC

[NewsArchive]

> Is there any way to tell Windows to just throw out whatever junk it has
> in the silly cache and rebuild it?

I too wrestled with this until I gave up. If you change an icon for an
app it is anyone's guess on which machines it will change. I got an
automated clear all cached icons going [you have to do it several places
I seem to recall] but there was no consistency. Sometimes it worked and
sometimes it failed. I never bothered to find out why - just put it
down to yet another Windows nuance.

Andre Labuschagne

[NewsArchive]

Hi Friedrich,

> Note that I'm on Windows 8.1 and he is on 10, but we have had the same
> problem.
>
> Is there any way to tell Windows to just throw out whatever junk it has
> in the silly cache and rebuild it? Any insights will help!

After spending considerable time testing this and trying out various
things, we have found a way that seems to work 100% - so far!

1. RENAME the bleeping icon!
2. Use the "Refresh Desktop" action

The RENAMING is absolutely the key! Then Windows doesn't find the icon
in the cache!

So simple, yet so elusive!

Best regards,

--
Arnor Baldvinsson
Icetips Alta LLC

[NewsArchive]

Hi all,

> After spending considerable time testing this and trying out various
> things, we have found a way that seems to work 100% - so far!
>
> 1. RENAME the bleeping icon!
> 2. Use the "Refresh Desktop" action

Not quite so fast! It works perfectly on a *32bit* Windows 10 machine,
but fails on 64bit Windows 10 machine (tested on two). The desktop
refreshes, but it still uses the old icons:(

What a PITA!

Best regards,


--
Arnor Baldvinsson
Icetips Alta LLC

[NewsArchive]

Arnor,

> Not quite so fast! It works perfectly on a *32bit* Windows 10 machine,
> but fails on 64bit Windows 10 machine (tested on two). The desktop
> refreshes, but it still uses the old icons:(

If I'm recalling correctly the cache retains the icon number so if the
icon is still the number "0" icon it retrieves the image from the
cache instead of from the library.

Even if you change icons in the shortcut to some other icon and then
change it back to the first icon the OLD image will be displayed! MS
helping us when help is not wanted nor needed - THANK YOU!<g>

--
Lee White

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[NewsArchive]

Hi Lee,

> Even if you change icons in the shortcut to some other icon and then
> change it back to the first icon the OLD image will be displayed! MS
> helping us when help is not wanted nor needed - THANK YOU!<g>

This is an absolute PITA!

But I did find a way that seems to solve this for me on 64bit machines.

http://www.thewindowsclub.com/desktop-does-not-refresh-automatically-windows

Setting this registry key and rebooting DOES refresh the icons, but it
introduces quite a bit of delay displaying the desktop as Windows goes
and caches the icons again. Turn it off or delete it and it seems to
revert back to previous stage.

Then there is the way of deleting the cache files
(http://www.thewindowsclub.com/rebuild-icon-clear-thumbnail-cache-windows-10)
that that involves shutting down explorer, gaining admin access to the
files, deleting them and then restarting explorer. NOT for the faint of
heart!

Best regards,


--
Arnor Baldvinsson
Icetips Alta LLC

[NewsArchive]

Hi Lee,

> If I'm recalling correctly the cache retains the icon number so if the
> icon is still the number "0" icon it retrieves the image from the
> cache instead of from the library.

The thing was that changing the icon name and adding the refresh desktop
in SB fixed this on 32bit, where neither change by itself did. On 64bit
Windows 10 latest whatever, it did absolutely nothing! Nada! All it
did was flicker one (or flip it, not sure what it was;) and that was that.

Total, royal PITA!

Best regards,



--
Arnor Baldvinsson
Icetips Alta LLC

[NewsArchive]

As I said - tried all you have suggested and the result varies from
machine to machine no matter the OS version. It is a real mess. I
eventually gave up.

A PITA puts it mildly. I have more apt descriptions. I cannot believe
that MS with their developers and resources cannot make this a simple
and fool proof exercise. It is a joke.

Andre Labuschagne

[NewsArchive]

Hi Andre,

> A PITA puts it mildly. I have more apt descriptions. I cannot believe
> that MS with their developers and resources cannot make this a simple
> and fool proof exercise. It is a joke.

It really is:( There should be some simple APIs like
"RefreshDesktopIcons" and "RefreshIconCache" Really seems it would be
easy for the internal guys!

I hear that Gates has a 10K sq.ft. tiny house up in the hills here on
the Peninsula. Maybe I should go sit on his lawn for a day or two<g>

Best regards,

--
Arnor Baldvinsson
Icetips Alta LLC

[NewsArchive]

> Maybe I should go sit on his lawn for a day or two<g>

LOL

Andre Labuschagne