Icons in "All Programs" list have reverted to standard windows folder icon

I have tried system restore, but cant seem to get the original icons back. Can anyone advise how I can get the original ones back ?

 

Copied from ItIsTrue.org:

There is a hidden icon cache file in your windows directory, ShellIconCache, which contains a copy of all the default desktop icons. It sometimes gets corrupted. If it does, your icons will go all black or they may display the wrong icons. If this happens, delete it and reboot. NT (& Win9x) will repopulate the cache with the default icons.

To delete the ShellIconCache:
1. at a command prompt, change to the %SystemRoot% folder
2. remove the hidden attribute from the file: type attrib -h shelliconcache and press ENTER.
3. delete the file:
4. type del shelliconcache and press ENTER.
5. log off and back on and the default icons should be restored.

TweakUI has been known to corrupt the ShellIconCache.

This tip applies to all versions of Windows including Windows NT, Windows 2000, and Windows XP.

 

You just can't believe everything you read these days. Actually, there is no such file in XP named Shelliconcache. The closest thing to it would be the iconcache.db. It probably has the same function as the other file and I have deleted it before and noticed that it does rebuild itself but I'm not sure it does any good with the Icon Refreshing problem.

The most effective thing I have found for that problem is increasing the number of cached icons. You can do that a couple of ways, manually edit the registry or get a helper script file to assist in the work.

Manual method:

Using Registry Editor, add the Max Cached Icons string value with a value data of 2000 to the following registry key, and then restart your computer:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
If the icons are still incorrect, delete the ShellIconCache file or the iconcache.db file, whichever exixts.
The Max Cached Icons value data range is between 100 and 4096. The default value is 500.

Automatic method:

http://www.forrestandassociates.co.uk/pcforrest/reg_hacks.html#iconcache

Cheers.