Fix Broken Shortcuts Windows 10

Dec 07, 2015. Navigate to the Windows 10 Advanced Startup Options menu. There are many ways to get to. If Windows doesn't find a new driver, look for one on the device manufacturer's website and follow their instructions. If those steps didn't work, try uninstalling your touchpad driver: open Device Manager, right-click (or press and hold) the touchpad driver, and select Uninstall. Restart your device and Windows will attempt to reinstall the. Aug 06, 2020. Feb 06, 2019.

1. Fix Broken Desktop Shortcuts Windows 10
2. Fix Shortcuts In Windows 10
3. Broken Shortcut Fixer
4. Windows 10 Cheat Sheet Printable
5. How To Fix Broken Shortcuts

Fix Broken Desktop Shortcuts Windows 10

When you think about it, Windows 10 is one of the most used PC operating systems. This is achieved using multiple features and usability enhancements that make it such popular among users. However, such a large software is bound to have its errors.

One such error appears right on the desktop, where the icons appear blank or broken. Here, I shall discuss how to fix corrupted icons and shortcuts in Windows 10 easily.

Contents

• 1 How To Fix Corrupted Icons And Shortcuts In Windows 10?

Fix Shortcuts In Windows 10

How To Fix Corrupted Icons And Shortcuts In Windows 10?

Broken Shortcut Fixer

The icons that you see on the desktop and other areas of the operating system are stored in a separate database as icon cache. This cache data allows the operating system to quickly load them the next time you launch the desktop, or log into Windows.

Windows 10 Cheat Sheet Printable

However, as the icon cache library grows larger, there is a chance that some data in this library may go missing or corrupt. When this happens, you will notice that Windows 10 icons appear blank, or the icons are displayed incorrectly.

Here, I must tell you that there is no simple button or menu that you can press to rebuild icon cache. However, you can rebuild icon cache in Windows 10 using a series of commands in an admin command prompt. Another method involves deleting the icon cache manually, as it shall be rebuilt upon restart.

Let us take a better look at how you can easily clear icon cache in Windows 10.

Method 1: Windows 10 Rebuilt Icon Cache Using Command Prompt

Admin command prompt is one of the most versatile command line interpreters available for Windows. Use the following method in Windows 10 to rebuild icon cache.

1. 1. 1. Open a Run dialog using the Win + R shortcut.
      2. Here, type cmd and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to launch Command Prompt with Admin rights. Click on the Yes button in the User Account Control prompt,
      3. Type the following command to change the directory in command prompt:
         cd %homepath%AppDataLocalMicrosoftWindowsExplorer
      4. In this directory, type the following command to bring up the list of available icon cache files:
         dir iconcache*
      5. This should display a number of different icon cache files created and stored on your computer, including:

   iconcache_1280.dbiconcache_16.db
   iconcache_1920.db
   iconcache_256.db
   iconcache_2560.db
   iconcache_32.db
   iconcache_48.db
   iconcache_768.db
   iconcache_96.db
   iconcache_custom_stream.db
   iconcache_exif.db
   iconcache_idx.db
   iconcache_sr.db
   iconcache_wide.db
   iconcache_wide_alternate.db

   1. Next, use the following command to end the explorer process:
      taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
   2. Considering you are in the same directory, enter the following command to delete icon cache in Windows 10:
      del iconcache*

To verify, you can the icon library has been deleted successfully, use the command mentioned in Step 4.

Note: If some database file remains, you might have to take ownership of the folder as you do not have the necessary permissions for acting on it.

Restart your PC to rebuild icon cache and fix corrupted icons and shortcuts in Windows 10.

Method 2: Manually Clean The PC

If you still see Windows 10 desktop icons blank, another method you can try is manually clearing the cache data. To manually clean the PC and rebuild icon cache, you can visit the same folder that you opened using Command Prompt i.e. %localappdata%MicrosoftWindowsExplorer and delete all the icon database files.

Serial number for flip4mac 333. Also, follow this guide to clean junk files in Windows 10.

Wrapping Up

How To Fix Broken Shortcuts

So there you have it. If you see Windows icons blank or broken, now you know how to fix corrupted icons and shortcuts in Windows 10 using the method provided above. Comment below if you found this useful, and to discuss further the same.

If icons in your Windows 10 File Explorer look strange or broken, your icon cache might have become corrupt. This issue is very common for all Windows versions. In this article we will see how to fix broken icons and reset the icon cache without reboot in Windows 10.

RECOMMENDED: Click here to fix Windows errors and optimize system performance

To show icons faster, Windows caches them into a file. This special file contains icons for many apps and file types, so File Explorer doesn't need to extract the icons for known file extensions and apps. This allows File Explorer to work faster, but it has an annoying side effect. If the cache ever gets corrupted or if Explorer does not refresh the icon cache regular enough, Windows displays wrong icons. Some files in File Explorer and the Desktop can stop showing the right icons or get a blank 'unknown file type' icon. Some shortcuts can display the incorrect icons. To fix this, you need to reset the icon cache.

In our previous article, we covered how to reset icon cache using a third party tool or with a restart of Explorer. Here is a better way to save your time and reset the icon cache instantly.

Here is how the broken icon cache looks in action. For my Firefox Nightly browser, Windows 10 shows a blank icon:

To fix it, do the following:

1. Press Win + R shortcut keys together on the keyboard to open the Run dialog.
2. Type the following in the Run box:
3. This will fix the broken icon cache and fix icons instantly:

Use Winaero Tweaker

You can an option of Winaero Tweaker which is especially designed to refresh the shell icon cache.

1. Download Winaero Tweaker.
2. Run it and go to ToolsReset Icon Cache:
   
3. Now every time you want to refresh the icon cache, click the button 'Reset Icon Cache'.

The following video shows this trick in action:
Tip: You can subscribe to Winaero at YouTube.

RECOMMENDED: Click here to fix Windows errors and optimize system performance