Icons not displaying... 2

[PMedema]

I have W2K with all the latest patches and so on...
Quite often when I first logon to the machine I have to manulally refresh the desktop (right mouse click, Refresh)
in order for the Icons to display (otherwise all I see is the generic icon like for a text file or something)
Any ideas on how to fix this 'problem'?

Thanks
PM

 

[Gersen]

I've seen something like this when the machine either doesn't have much memory (and is relying heavily on virtual memory) or starts waaaay too many things on startup, which also eats up the memory. It's made worse if you're low on hard drive space.

G.



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There are only 10 kinds of people; those who understand binary and those who don't...

 

[bcastner]

Windows stores Icons it displays in a cache file called ShellIconCache. This allows icons to appear quickly, as Windows doesn’t have to load the icons from programs that contain them. However, by default the cache holds 512 icons. Once the cache is full Windows it gets destroyed & begins again. When this happens desktop activity slows to a crawl & the desktop will most likely redraw. Increasing the Icon Cache size will decrease the amount of times this may happen in a session.

Open this key with regedit:[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer]

Add a New string value entitled Max Cached Icons. The default value is 512. You should increase this value. I’d recommend doubling it to 1024. The maximum value for this is 2000 & minimum is 100 according to Microsoft.

 

[SoledadTX]

PMedema -

Perhaps some bad icons in the cache?

Consider this:
Download & install TweakUI v.1.33

http://www.microsoft.com/ntworkstation/downloads/PowerToys/Networking/NTTweakUI.asp

This places TweakUI conttrol in the Control Panel. Choose the Repair tab and perform the Rebuild Icons task.

Hope this helps!

SoledadTX
Aspire to your dreams
or
Dim to your demise!

 

[bcastner]

SoledadTX,

An excellent point, I have often wondered why TweakUI was not just distributed with Windows.

My original post suggesting a registry change in the cached icon capabilities I suspect is a better long term change to make then constantly repairing the icon cache.

What I find amusing is how regedit does the function to rebuild or repair icons.

It changes by one pixel/point the size of the icons, then calls on native Windows APIs to refresh the desktop; then changes by one pixel/point the settings back and calls the same APIs to refresh the desktop.

A very cool hack.

 

[bcastner]

In Windows 95/98/NT/2000/ME/XP you can lock down the position of the Desktop icons using a couple of files from the MS Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit. Download Layout.dll here:

http://www.pcnineoneone.com/tweaks/layout.zip

Place it here: C:\Winnt\System32 then double click the Layout.reg file. You will now have a new right click option to restore your desktop icon placement settings.

The right-click option requires that you click on a GUID icon, for example it is easily done with a right-click on your Recycle Bin.

It is a mystery to me why this was not included with Win2k or later OS versions by default.

 

[PMedema]

Hey Thanks for the ideas...
I'll try them out.

PM

 

[moreCA]

I found some VB code to do the same thing TweakUI does as described by 'bcastner' above. It works great on Win98, but on Win2000 it doens't work, because the registry entry that it's changing, 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\desktop\WindowMetrics\Shell Icon Size', does not exist as it does in Win98. Does anyone know how to do this in Win2K and WinXP?

Thanks,
CA

 

[bcastner]

For Win2k/XP:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics
Value Name: Shell Icon Size
Data Type: REG_SZ (String Value)
Value Data: Size in Pixels (Default = 32)

Create a new value named 'Shell Icon Size' and set the value, or modify the existing value, to equal the size of your icons in pixels.

 

[moreCA]

Am I to assume that Win2K/WinXP machines will not necessarily have this entry in the registry, therefore I need to first check that it's there and if not create it?

I acutally solved the issue with the Win2K that I was testing on by use the 'Shell Icon BPP' key value in the same way. This method works on Win2K/WinXP, but not on Win98. So I just check to see which OS I'm on and use the different key values based on that.

Thanks for the reply,
CA

 

[bcastner]

It is not there by default, you need to create it. After a reboot it will be checked.

The Windows NT family does not populate registry entries unless forced to (Group Policy), or a manual entry, or a third-party tool like TweakUI. With NT 5 (XP) the registry sizing constraint was removed, but the entries are still made conservatively.

I hoped I made it clear enough above that you would have to create the entry if not present. This is exactly what TweakUI does.

Best,
Bill Castner