Explorer PNG preview not working and alot of program icons missing

Hello friends on the Win10 forums,

I'm having a few problems for years now on my Windows 10 desktop. It seems like my explorer is corrupted or something. Some PNG files in my explorer are showing a preview of the image, while others don't. Also alot of program icons in my taskbar are disappearing randomly. Below i posted a few screenshots of an example for each problem.

PNG preview not working on same set of images



Spotify + Windows 10 Mail Icons missing in taskbar and searchbar



Skype Icon missing from searchbar



I have tried clearing the icon cache in CMD. I also looked at my settings and the setting to preview miniature images instead of icons is already on. How do i fix this?

dalchina said:

Hi, what is your Windows build? The forum prompted you to enter this and how to find that when you created your post. Thanks.

If you create a new user for test purposes and log in as that user, do you see the same problem or not?

Hi Dalchina, thanks for responding.

My build = Windows 10.0.18362 Build 18362

I have created a new user and tested it there, and it seems to be doing fine. Both the PNG previews and icons of programs like Skype and Mail are working.

dalchina said:

Good, that means it's an issue specific to your account and its settings.

Log back in to your original account and try setting default associations:
First if you wish note that you can first back up your current associations to restore them, if useful, using this:
Export and Import Default App Associations for New Users in Windows

Restore Default File Type Associations in Windows 10

You should restart after that, I think.

Hi again,

I restored the File Type Associations for all my files but as I expected that didn't work. I think if the file associations were the problem, all of my .png or .exe files wouldn't reveal a icon. In this case some do and some don't, altho they share the same file extension.

Another thing I came across is when I open an image, close it and reload the folder in explorer, the preview of that image becomes visible (and even the other after that?). I guess it was something to do with loading the previews in when I open te folder? I have no idea.

dalchina said:

Sure, just establishing a base line really.
I know you said you'd tried clearing the icon cache above- anyway, please try:
Rebuild Icon Cache in Windows 10

Since your new account is ok, it's possible a program running in your problem account is responsible e.g.
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...c-e4fc49a79a78

Please try a clean boot (Google if unsure how) and compare the result.

Hello Dalchina,

I tried rebuilding the Icon Cache bij running the recommended .bat file on my admin account and after that restarted, but it seems like that hasn´t solved the problem.

I also ran the .reg file to restore the Default File Association for all .ico files, that also didn´t do the trick.

Finally I tried doing a clean boot by disabling all my startup applications and services, and that also didn´t do much.

If you have any other possible solutions, I would be glad to hear them. Maybe I need to reinstall all my programs that are missing an Icon like Spotify, Win10 Mail, Calculator and Notepad? Since I tried all the solutions above, maybe that will stop randomly dissapearing icons in the future.

Thank you in advance.

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Flattert said:

Hello Dalchina,

I tried rebuilding the Icon Cache bij running the recommended .bat file on my admin account and after that restarted, but it seems like that hasn´t solved the problem.

I also ran the .reg file to restore the Default File Association for all .ico files, that also didn´t do the trick.

Finally I tried doing a clean boot by disabling all my startup applications and services, and that also didn´t do much.

If you have any other possible solutions, I would be glad to hear them. Maybe I need to reinstall all my programs that are missing an Icon like Spotify, Win10 Mail, Calculator and Notepad? Since I tried all the solutions above, maybe that will stop randomly dissapearing icons in the future.

Thank you in advance.

I tried resetting the Calculator for example, but that didn´t work either.