Desktop icons for Word, Excel, Ppt reverted to generic symbol

[revmark7]

I am on Vista (new to Vista) using Office 2003. I put shortcuts for Word,
Excel, Ppt on the desktop. Now the MS icon symbols have reverted to a generic
block icon symbol. Don't know if this is related but I renamed the shortcuts
a couple of times. But I have done that many times on XP and earlier. Any way
to get the MS icon symbol back?

 

[diaz1023]

have you tried to use the change icons in the desktop menu? that should help
you

 

[revmark7]

Tried that ... only the system icons show up for alteration (recycle,
computer, etc) ... app icons that I have installed do not show up on the list
as available to be changed ...

 

[Peter Foldes]

Instead of playing around to change them ,delete the shortcuts on the desktop and create new ones

 

[revmark7]

tried that (one way) ... but the icons under "all programs" are also the
generic ... strange ... maybe i have to uninstall and reinstall the programs?

 

[Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]]

No need to do that. Sounds like your icon cache is too small. Try setting
it to 4096 or higher. You can do this with TweakUI for Windows XP. Not
sure where you can change this in Windows Vista.

You may also want to have a look to see if you have high contrast set in
your appearance options.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact.
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/KB/555375


After furious head scratching, revmark7 asked:

| tried that (one way) ... but the icons under "all programs" are also
| the generic ... strange ... maybe i have to uninstall and reinstall
| the programs?
|
| "Peter Foldes" wrote:
|
|| Instead of playing around to change them ,delete the shortcuts on
|| the desktop and create new ones
||
|| --
|| Peter
||
|| Please Reply to Newsgroup for the benefit of others
|| Requests for assistance by email can not and will not be
|| acknowledged.
||
|| ||| I am on Vista (new to Vista) using Office 2003. I put shortcuts for
||| Word, Excel, Ppt on the desktop. Now the MS icon symbols have
||| reverted to a generic block icon symbol. Don't know if this is
||| related but I renamed the shortcuts a couple of times. But I have
||| done that many times on XP and earlier. Any way to get the MS icon
||| symbol back?

 

[revmark7]

PROBLEM RESOLVED ... I had to get out the Office installation disk and do a
"repair" .... that fixed the icons ...

STRANGE ... Is this the Twilight Zone ... yesterday (Sun) the Word icon
reappeared correctly for awhile ... then when I came back later to work (it
hibernated) ... the icon was back to generic again ... (the Excel and
Powerpoint icons did not join in on the fun and pop up correctly like Word
.... I guess they thought it wasn't worth the trouble to "change" and then
"change back again" ... NOW BEFORE YOU ASSIGN ME TO THE LOONEY BIN ... I know
I sat there and looked at that ONE CORRECT icon, and thought ... this is
getting too weird ... it is like the computer is into practical jokes ...

OH WELL ... thanks for all the help and discussion

 

[Jay Freedman]

If your desktop icons go wonky -- although this shouldn't happen often, if at
all -- it's usually because something is scrambled in the "icon cache", the
memory area where Windows stores the icons. This article shows two methods of
rebuilding the cache:
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/117229-icon-cache-rebuild.html

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all
may benefit.