Desktop Icons Changing

[AlanHo]

I think I posted this problem a few months ago - but no-one then came up with a solution so I will try again

I have a problem with some shortcut icons on my desktop and in Windows Explorer. They change to something else of their own volition. This sometimes happens after a reboot - but also happens at random during a session on the computer. It happens on icons that have been clicked and on icons not used that day.

For example, this morning, my shortcut to WF changed from the WF logo I created to something quite obscure. I changed it back to the correct one and an hour later it changed back to the obscure one yet again even though I had not used it in the meantime.

The problem occurs quite regularly - not every day - but a few times a week and it affects only certain icons (all are shortcuts I have created to web sites or programs). Some shortcuts have remained stable ever since I created them and have never changed. I can see no relationship between the icons affected and putting them right normally cures the problem for a few days - before it pops up again on the same or a different icon.

I have two utilities - Desktop Icon Restore and Favicon organiser installed on the computer - but neither address this particular problem

[Thos]

My desk top icon for this forum has also changed to this:-

No other seems to have changed.

Thos.

[AlanHo]

Snap - that is exactly the same icon that mine keeps changing to.

But it does it sometimes when I am not using the forum - it is all very strange.

I never used to believe in ghosts..........but....

Afterthought edit

The icon that changes most is my shortcut to "view recent posts". The icon tto the WF home page changes less often - but both change to the same mystery icon you are getting.

[AlanHo]

STOP PRESS

From another forum

Message from VOG

Try the repair icons feature in TweakUI http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloa...ppowertoys.mspx

My reply

Thanks VOG

When I initially tried it - it converted the icon back to the obscure one.

I then changed the icon back to the correct one and tried Tweak again. This time it retained the correct icon. I will wait and see what it does next time the icon changes.

One downside of Tweak is that it completely rearranges the desktop icons into columns. Fortunately my Icon Restore utility puts them back where I want them.

[AlanHo]

STOP PRESS 2

The forum icon just changed again - back to the one Thos posted - but this time Tweak failed to correct it.

Mission not accomlished.

[AlanHo]

Someone on another forum suggested I change the size of the XP Icon Cache - which I have done. I don't know yet whether it has cured the problem - but have my fingers crossed - the icons are stable at present.

What I do know for sure is that the icons on my desktop now refresh much, much faster - so it has done some good

It involves a registry edit - so be careful if you give it a try.

Instructions here

[catgate]

I would be surprised if it is solely an XP problem. On my W98SE machine, which I am still using for odd jobs, I get changes to shortcut icon on the desk top from time to time. It is only the short cut ones, and the change is usually a change to the "arrow". This often changes to a blue square. Just what triggers it I know not. There is no obvius change to their operational characteristic and next boot up brings them up normal again.

[Thos]

I don't particularly mind the change in icon, but it appears also in the address bar and on the browser tab.

Thos.

[AlanHo]

The plot thickens and I am getting more confused - and more determined to solve a niggling problem. I know it is of little consequence - but I hate riddles and we have so many experts on this forum, surely someone will come up trumps.

I have a utility on my computer called FavOrg which purports to keep your favicons neat and tidy. I believe it was recommended to me by andsome - I know he has mentioned it a couple of times and it encouraged me to download it. This little programme did what it said on the tin with IE6 - until I used CrapCleaner - which undid all the good work and I found I had to use FavOrg to download the favicons for all my favourites again. I now use IE7 and cannot be sure it still works fully - I have read on another forum a suggestion that it has problems with the latest browser.

This is an extract from the FavOrg help file...

FavOrg is about favicons. Favicons appeared with Internet Explorer 5.0. Whenever you connect to a Web site that proposes a favicon, Internet Explorer will download that icon to your system and will use it for any shortcut or menu item created for this web link. This is a useful feature because this will make finding a particular site in your Favourites folder easier, especially if you have many favourites.

What is a favicon by the way? Internet Explorer will always look for a file named favicon.ico in the root folder of any site to which you connect. For example, if you connect to http://www.thissite.com/programs/freeware/index.htm, the favicon URL should be http://www.thissite.com/favicon.ico. If IE finds such a file, it will download it as soon as you create a new item for this site in your favourites folder (Add to favourites... command). This icon will be assigned to the corresponding shortcut automatically. You’ll see that a favicon is sometimes not an actual icon but a bitmap (which sometimes leads to minor display problems).

So, why do we need a utility to manage these favicons? Because Internet Explorer doesn’t do its job very well. The downloaded icon file is stored as a temporary file. Which means that after a while, the favicon will disappear and your shortcut will be associated again with the standard Internet Explorer icon. This often happens after cleaning up your Temporary Internet Files folder. FavOrg will fix this problem and ensure that your favicons are made sticky. That is, once downloaded, the icon will be assigned to the shortcut permanently. FavOrg stores the favicons in a user-defined folder.

Also, for unknown reasons, Internet Explorer sometimes fails to automatically download the favicon. FavOrg will check any Internet shortcut in your favourites folder and will automatically download and install the favicon if it is present on that particular Web site.

FavOrg will also allow you to assign a custom icon to any of your Internet favourites, even if there’s no favicon downloadable from the corresponding Web site.

Finally, since FavOrg must check the validity of an Internet shortcut before trying to download the corresponding favicon (if any), this is a good opportunity to find which of your favourites links are broken. FavOrg will report dead sites, removed or moved pages and will also be able to automatically reset a link to the site’s root page (if a page has been removed) or to update a link to a page that has been relocated.

FavOrg is not a replacement for the Organize favourites dialog box. It is just here to manage the favicons and the custom icons assigned to a given Internet shortcut and to give you information about dead links (which you may decide to delete).

The icon that appears in the address bar and IE tab must be the favicon for the WF site - I see it there too and it is this icon that keeps taking over my desktop shortcut to this site. It therefore appears that there is a link between favicons and desktop shortcuts.

However - I have other desktop shortcuts to web sites that have favicons which remain aloof from the problem - my chosen icon sits there month after month without becoming grumpy. It is the WF icon that seems to be so badly behaved.

I have just used FavOrg to assign a custom icon to the WF URL - which it has done only partly because whilst my chosen icon appears in Windows Explorer and the Favourites menu in IE7 - the icon you posted still shows up in the address bar and browser tab. It appears that when you access WF - IE7 uses the favicon off the server regardless.

A counter to this theory is that I have tried accessing a number of favourites which show favicons in the Favourites menu and IE7 behaves inconsistently. On some the favicon appears in the address bar and browser tab – on some the standard explorer icon appears in the address bar and the favicon appears on the browser tab - and on quite a few the standard explorer icon appears in both.

Since a computer is a dumb machine without a mind of its own – there must be a logical explanation for this behaviour. I freely admit my computer knowledge is limited – but this illogical behaviour has got me intrigued and I hope our experts can provide an explanation and solution….PLEASE.

[garrason]

Using Win XP SP2, IE7, Panda Internet Security 2008, Windows Defender

It's almost a year since the last posting about changing icons.

Now I'm having the problem.

Let's say I have two icon links on my desktop to Internet sites.

Link A has a unique graphics taken from the website when I created the icon link.

Lib B has its own unique graphics also from it's website.

Enter the gremlin which takes the graphics from Link B and substitutes it for that of Link A. The link code does not change so I can still get to stie A if I remember the icon shows site B's graphic.

The graphics for Link B is changed, at the same time, to the Google graphics. Now, the Google "G" is nowhere on my desktop because Google is my homepage for IE and has been for years.

In both the above cases the erroneous graphics shows in the IE7 tab and URL boxes.

I've deleted both links from my desktop several times and set them back up. The "G" still comes back for Link B. However, now Link A shows IE's generic "file" (not site) logo. I've changed the size of my icons and then set them back. Nothing has worked.

Today Link B graphics has been changed to a third graphics that I don't recognize. The new graphics on Link B also appears on 8 other links (not mentioned before) for different pages on the site that Link A also leads to. Link A's graphic remains the generic.

For what it might be worth, in spite of my scan software somehow a mayflower.exe icon was added sometime to my desktop. I never clicked on it and have deleted it on the advice of a friend. This last icon change came after I had deleted mayflower.

Just this minute I rebooted and those 8 other links are back to the correct graphics. However, A & B still show the wrong graphics as described above.

Any help or suggestions will be most appreciated.

C C Garrason

[andsome]

I have never before thought about a direct link to the forum. Now in the light of this thread I have given it a go. The desktop link is in the form of the forum logo at present, so I will see how it goes and report back if it changes. :D

[Alan2273]

That is one of the good things about Opera browser, you get Speed dial which saves you using shortcut icons.

http://www.opera.com/support/tutorials/flash/speeddial/

[catgate]

That is one of the good things about Opera browser, you get Speed dial which saves you using shortcut icons.

http://www.opera.com/support/tutorials/flash/speeddial/

That's neat.

[Watchful]

I've had a desktop icon for this forum since joining. It is, as andsome says, like the forum logo.

Mine used to change sometimes but not done so for a long time now. I used Favorg to sort them out.

[Irene]

All you have to do, is to find the page with which you wish to open.

Right-click on the page and select, "create a shortcut".

It is likely to default to your Desktop.

You can control/change the icon later if you wish.

[garrason]

Or you can minimize your page (might have to drag it smaller to find a blank space on your desktop), left click on the icon in the URL box, then drag it down to the blank space. You might find you will want to shorten the text below the icon. Return the page to its original size.

PS: The graphics on those 8 icons I mentioned above have returned to the one I included in my post without me rebooting.

C C Garrason

[andsome]

Mine has stayed the same. To create it I right clicked on the desktop and selected New/Shortcut.. I typed in www.windowsform.org then selected OK. The shortcut was in the form of a large E, I right clicked and selected rename, and called it Windows Form, it then changed to the correct logo as soon as I next clicked the desktop. I have since created several this way, and they have all remained as originally created. I have also run C Cleaner, and still the icon is stable.

P.S. I have found that for some sites this does not work, and the short cut is a large E. For these, first open the website to the home page, right click and copy the URL, and then paste this into the new short cut.

[andsome]

After more tests, I now think I know why some shortcuts do not in the first instance come out correctly. The URL for Windows forum is www.windowsforum.org then the icon is correct. When the site is open to the homepage, that is the URL at the top of the page. If however I type www.leaguebowls.com, I will get a shortcut to the website, but is will be in the form of an E. If I open the website to the homepage, the URL at the top is shown as http://www.leaguebowls.com/league/generichome.aspx, so this has to be pasted into the shortcut creator on the desktop. Then the shortcut DOES have the correct icon. I hope I have explained clearly. :D

[andsome]

I have now re-created some shortcuts using the copy/paste method. I have since re-booted several times, uninstalled and reinstalled a program, and also uninstalled and reinstalled three M/S updates. The icons have remained stable.

[garrason]

I have not rebooted since yesterday, but for no apparent reason all but one of my desktop icons have returned to the correct graphics.

The one that is still wrong is for my own genealogical website. That graphic is still the generic "file" graphics instead of the generic "E" website graphics.

Some of these were corrected with no intervention by me. When I noticed that, I clicked on the other incorrect ones, went to those websites and when I returned to my desktop the correct icon was showing.

Guess it's too close to Halloween!

C C Garrason

[AlanHo]

It is almost a year since I originated this thread - since when I have a new computer with Vista. However - the icon problem still plagues me despite trying all sorts of remedies suggested by members of this forum and several others.

My Original Thread

I am now convinced that there is an inherent bug in both XP and Vista that prevents you from assigning stable and unique icons to desktop shortcuts. An expert on another forum advocates that Vista desktop icons are stable if the icons are 256 x 256 pixels and stored in a dedicated folder on the same partition as the OS. I have tried this - but after a week of euphoria have slipped into the troughs of despair as the phantom icon changer struck again. Its a bugger.

[andsome]

Mine are still stable. Have you tried creating them as I outlined? :D

[AlanHo]

Mine are still stable. Have you tried creating them as I outlined? :D

Yes - it was how I did it in the first place.