File Explorer Navigation Pane Default Icons Have Changed

Hello! First time posting here.

I asked this question about a week ago on the HP community, and although a suggestion was offered, the problem persists.

I cannot give an exact date, but at some point my File Explorer Navigation Pane Icons changed from the default:



to this:



Notice they are folder icons with the unique icon picture 'overlay'

Brief history:

• I have had my HP Spectre x360 15 (4K touch display) for about 6 weeks.
• Initial file transfer was done using Windows (7) Easy Transfer (migwiz) which I have used on other machines without incident. Using the advanced selection; no settings were transferred, just Documents, Pictures, Music, Video.
• I do not use any outside themes; just experimented a few times using the built in HP themes.
• I have gone so far as to try overriding the current icons using the registry modifications mentioned in this Ten Forums post: Change Icons of Folders in This PC in Windows 10
• When I tried the suggestions in Option One, the only change which occurred was that the unique icon picture was removed and only the plain folder icon remained. Yet the registry entries outlined in Option 2 “Change Icons of Folders in This PC for All Users” all appear to be correct.
• There are no “exotic” programs on the computer – just Office 365, Adobe Photoshop/Premiere Elements, Bootstrap Studio, Inkscape, etc.

Purchased at the same time was an HP Envy x360 laptop which is almost identical in specifications and installed programs except it has a regular Full HD touch screen (1920x1080). The Navigation Pane icons there are the expected 'default' as shown in the second screenshot.

Any ideas what may have caused this and any suggestions how to get the default icons back?

Hi topgundcp,

Thanks for your reply. After unchecking "Hide protected operating system files" I am able to see them. However, they do not appear to be consistent.

For example, the desktop.ini for 3D Objects does not show any reference to an icon while the others do. Another odd thing is that I see 2 desktop.ini files under Documents. Although each reference the proper icon, the one labeled desktop.ini (1) has additional lines of code and is dated from before I set up this machine.

Can I reference my other laptop with the proper icons and just manually change these desktop.ini files to match?

When you navigate to the actual folder location (C:\Users\<UserName> or C:\Users\<UserName>\OneDrive unless you've redirectred them), Do they display thier custom icons in the Content pane?

topgundcp said:

Note: it won't work if you try to edit manually.

What do you mean by that? Desktop.ini is a text file. A valid desktop.ini can be created in Notepad.

But, for a desktop.ini to have any effect, its folder must have iis Read-only attribute set. Adding the Attributes column to a Details view in Explorer shows that the customized folders have the R in the Attributes column.

Other than assigning a custom icon via a folder's Properties dialog, there's not way to set teh attribute for a folder via the UI. But from a PowerShell window open to that folder, (gi .).Attributes += 'ReadOnly' will do the dtrick.

gi = Get-Item
'.' = current directory

topgundcp said:

Sure you can edit it with notepad. However, those desktop.ini are special types. They contains Localized Resource and Localized Filenames. Unless you know what to put in there, they won't work.

Unlike the regular desktop.ini. Say you create a folder and want to change the icon for this folder, which you can edit and add/modify the icon. This would be no problem.

Take a look at this link: How do I restore the localized name for documents folder (Windows 10)? - Super User

I know all about desktop.ini & rheir functions already. You still haven't explained you meant by:

"Note: it won't work if you try to edit manually."

It seemed to imply there was something special about copied files as opposed those created manually.

Wow! Thanks to everyone for the interest in my problem.

@KeithM – Yes, my content pane icons look just like yours do. It’s just my Navigation Pane Icons that are problematic. Interestingly, my Library Icons have their proper specific icons.

@Lance1 – Thank you for the suggestion, but even after a restart, the procedure did not change anything.

Regarding the desktop.ini files. I decided to remove the additional desktop.ini (1) from Documents. Judging by the content, it appears to have been a hold-over from my XP to Windows 7 transfer.

I have checked all of my desktop.ini files against two other laptops and found that most of mine have the exact same content as the other two machines. However, there is a variation between all three laptops on 3D objects and Downloads. So, I have not made any modifications/replacements to my desktop.ini files. I will be checking a fourth Windows 10 machine tomorrow and will report back with any pertinent info.

Also, I don’t know if this was its intended purpose but I ran a Rebuild_Icon_Cache batch file I found in these forums – no effect.

Have a good evening, all.