Icons not showing up on Desktop in Windows7

Icons not showing up on Desktop in Windows 7

In Windows 7, sometimes there is an issue that the icons are not shown on Desktop, taskbar etc.  The option ‘Show Desktop icons’ should be checked, that is available when we right click on Desktop and click on View.  From view, we have to check ‘Show Desktop icons’ option.  Even if it is checked and some of the icons are not shown, then another possibility is that the icon cache is corrupt.  Icon cache is used to retrieve the icons faster from the cache.  We then need to rebuild icon cache.  We can do that by using the following steps:

  • If hidden files and folders are not shown, then we need to check that option from Start->Control Panel->Folder options->View->Hidden files and folders, and check on ‘Show hidden files, folders, and drives’.
  • Open Windows Explorer
  • We have to delete “IconCache.db” file that is present in this location: “C:UsersLogin-NameAppDataLocal”, where ‘Login-Name’ is the name of the user we are logged in.
  • Delete the file using shift key, so that it is permanently deleted and not shifted to Recycle Bin.
  • Reboot

The icon cache will be rebuilt.