Why is my "Settings" icon invisible?

Bree said:

My only thought is that maybe some 3rd-party tool is being used that could be tweaking the icons.

Thank you Bree. I appreciate your prompt reply, as I'm sure Delly does as well.

Get some rest.



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@Delly10,

Is the 'Settings' icon visible in your start menu?


Click on your start button, scroll down and locate 'Settings'.

Right click on it (Settings), > click on 'More' > click on 'Pin to taskbar'.


Rudimentary, I know, but perhaps it will work.

I believe it is something simple. We just haven't hit on it yet.



You might also consider, right clicking on the space in the taskbar, where you know it's at, and clicking on 'Unpin from taskbar'. Then follow the steps above, to put it back.

Bree said:

My only thought is that maybe some 3rd-party tool is being used that could be tweaking the icons.

Well, it's only 1 icon being affected, and that's the Settings icon, and in the taskbar. All other icons in all other locations seem unaffected. But as long as I keep the (invisible) Settings icon between two other icons in the taskbar, I'll know it's there. It's not too big of an annoyance that's it's invisible, but it does have me curious. Especially after following your instructions made it appear, only for it to disappear again 2 days later. I suppose it can just be one of those unsolved mysteries.

Now I have a new development that furthers the mystery of the invisible Settings icon. It has now mysteriously reappeared for some reason, even though I haven't done anything further to fix the issue. On top of that, I just bought a Lenovo laptop from a seller on Craigslist, and I got to start out with a clean install of Win10. I began downloading some of the apps I want to have and have been setting everything up the way I like, and now I noticed that the Settings icon in the taskbar on my Lenovo has now disappeared as well. So now I know that it's not just an issue with my Dell laptop.
I can't believe nobody else is having this happen on their computer.

I just did a google search on the subject, and discovered that I'm actually not the only one. I hope these links will be useful for anyone else who comes across this thread and is experiencing the same issue:
How to Fix Windows 10 Invisible Taskbar Icons Issue.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...3-3ba20615a724

Taskbar icons are invisible, blank or missing in Windows 10

dalchina said:

Random thought- you could try increasing the icon cache size..
Change Icon Cache Size in Windows

I did it using the download of the registry file, and then rebooted my computer. I don't know for sure that it fixed the problem since my Settings icon had already mysteriously reappeared beforehand. When I have a chance to do the same fix on my Lenovo, where the Settings icon went invisible after only a couple days since getting the computer, I'll let you know what happened. Hopefully the icon won't magically reappear before I try the fix.