Program Icon Missing from Taskbar Shortcut

Windows Build 19042.928

I drag-n-dropped a Desktop Shortcut (that has the program icon showing) to my taskbar and clicked "Pin to taskbar." It got pinned, but lost its icon. Now, it's on the taskbar as a nondescript plain sheet of paper.

I tried right-clicking it, expecting to find a Properties tab, but no such luck- nothing useful there.

How can I force my plain-sheet-of-paper icon to change back to the program icon it has when it is on the Desktop? All of the other program icons that I have pinned to the taskbar are correctly showing their associated program icons.

Thanks.

PS: I did a search on "icon+taskbar" and found a bunch of stuff about "Tablet Mode," whatever that is, and a couple of really old threads unrelated to this issue.

Berton said:

What I do is locate the .exe file that runs the program, right-click it and choose Send to then Desktop (create shortcut). Then when that shortcut works and looks proper I right-click it and Pin to Taskbar or maybe Start.

Thanks. Already tried both "normal" methods of pinning the perfectly-working, properly-iconed shortcut to the task bar. Both of the normal methods result in an icon-free shortcut being pinned to the taskbar. It works, but it has only a generic icon.

Getting to the properties of a taskbar shortcut requires two right-clicks. Right-click once, then when the popup window appears, right-click the item name in the popup window.

Ben

Ben Myers said:

Getting to the properties of a taskbar shortcut requires two right-clicks. Right-click once, then when the popup window appears, right-click the item name in the popup window. Ben

Wow- thank you SO much for this valuable new info! I had no idea it was even possible to get the Properties dialogs on Taskbar shortcuts.

I did what you suggested, and got the Properties dialogs up, and on the General tab I clicked Change Icon. When the Change Icon windowlet opened, it already showed the correct icon! Nonetheless, I redundantly clicked it, then clicked "Apply" and closed the Properties box. Sadly, the icon is still the generic sheet of paper.

My conclusion: the shortcut "thinks" it is already displaying the selected icon - that's why the icon selection windowlet is pre-populated with the correct icon - but something is preventing it from displaying properly.

Again, thanks for your response, my knowledge has increased because of it. The fact that it didn't work is surely not your fault.

A custom icon might work. You might try searching the Internet for icons of the application in question. Also, see

Windows 10 icons. Where are they located? In which files and folders? | Digital Citizen

Ben

Well, the issue resolved itself spontaneously- after going into system BIOS to enable VT-X in support of a new Blue Stacks installation, my Logitech Gaming Software icon suddenly appeared on my taskbar shortcut!

It just blows my mind that we have an OS that is this wishy-washy, unpredictable, inconsistent, etc. But be that as it may, the issue is resolved even if "we" have no $%&ing idea how it resolved itself.

Thanks to all who responded.