Icons on desktop

Hi
When I boot up all most all of the icons on my desktop just look like microsoft flags(icons) and one by one they then change to their more familiar appearance. this is fairly new and I am worried that something is going on and could get worse
Thanks
Lewis

 

lewislewis--Usually, finding the file "Shelliconcache" (which could be a hidden folder in C:\Windows), deleting it and rebooting will do the trick.
Using TweakUI (Repair tab, Rebuild Icons) will also do that and a few more good things to help prevent the problem from happening in the future.
You get TweakUI here
http://www.microsoft.com/ntworkstation/downloads/PowerToys/Networking/NTTweakUI.asp
P.S. Shelliconcache will be recreated (uncorrupted) when you reboot.
P.P.S. Some people also recommend going into the Registry making the following change
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Current Version\click on Explorer (in the left pane) and then change the value of MaxCachedIcons (in the right pane) to 2040 (normal default is 500). However, I think TweakUI may do that for you. You could check that out if you use TweakUI, by looking at that Registry key before and after. It has been a long time since I did it myself.

 

Lewis

Do the following cleanups these will help performance greatly but the DOS cleanup specificaly clears the shellicon cache.

First
Configure CleanMgr to max settings
Go to Start-Run and type

cleanmgr /sageset:1
The above need only be ran once (these settings will be remembered as the default until another sageset is ran).

It will present a menu select all except compress, then

Go to Start-Run and type

cleanmgr /sagerun:1
As long as /sageset above has been ran on this computer from now on the /sagerun is the only thing that needs to run.
____________________________________________

Cleanups
These are for 95 98 ME only!

Boot to DOS (not shutdown to DOS). While booting hit F8 to startup menu. Chose "command prompt only ".

Type these commands exactly hit enter at the end (do not type the notes that are in parenthesis like this).

del c:\*.swp (may get file not found, is ok)
del c:\windows\*.swp
deltree c:\windows\shelli*.*
deltree c:\windows\temp\*.* (answer yes to all) "ALL "
deltree c:\windows\tempor~1\*.*
deltree c:\windows\history\*.*
deltree c:\windows\spool\printers\*.*

Remove floppy hit CTRL ALT DEL to reboot the computer.

Mike

 

Hi Welshjim and mflynn
Thanks for your help. I have tried Tweak and that seems to work.
Thanks again
Lewis
ps are the other clean ups worth doing anyway?
pps I don't know how to boot to dos

 

They are worth doing!

But if you don't know how to handle booting to dos forget it!

mike

 

lewislewis--Thanks for posting back. Glad to hear a suggestion helpd.
"ps are the other clean ups worth doing anyway? "
If it works, don't fix it.

 

Ummmmm

Hi,

Where in the other clean ups did it say to insert a floppy to begin with?!!?!?!?!?!? He He He anyways im just being a pain in the BUTT! Do you need a floppy to do those clean ups and what is the end benifit of the cleanups? can you please verify?


Thanks,

Stan (FireDancer)

 

This is the text of a cleanup.bat file that can be used to boot and run this automatically.

I used copy and paste for this post, and did not notice that I left it in.

So ignore this line.

Mike

 

Thanks for clarification... also...

Okies,


one more question.. are the setting in 98SE diff from 98 in the cleanmgr /sageset:1 you gave in that post I wanted to do the cleanup that way but I see no compress in there I was just a little curious


Thanks for the help,

Stan (FireDancer)

 

OK forgot to answer your other question as to the importance of these cleanups in dos.

They are the only way to clear the windows swap file which can grow in size and accumulate errors.

Same for the infamous index.dat files.

Windows protects these files but they do need some cleaning ever so often.

Now the compress option would be there if you had XP or 2K. I use this same suggestion Cleanmgr /sageset:1 for windows XP and 2k. I figure if the option wasn't there in98 you could not make a mistake and check it anyway! lol!

Mike

 

HE HE HE!!! FUNNY

ok,


so just check m all and run it once ... lol I kinda thought the same thing but I figured I better ask to be safe LOL . How often would your recomend runinng this cleanmgr /sage:1?


Thanks

Stan (FireDancer)

 

Run cleanmgr /sageset:1 once


cleanmgr /sagerun:1

once a month or so or at the frist sign of a slowdown or non specific problem.

Mike

 

Thanks So Much

Thanks,

will do you have been a big help I learned something new today!!!!

Stan