Missing Taskbar Icons

Night Hawk · 06 Nov 2015

Anything Metro would be MS online store related there. They act much more like HTML files and not desktop shortcuts you can easily trace back to the registry. It's like pinning web content to the Start tile section there. The option to add simply brings up another screen presently loaded by default with options for fonts and not any apps at least on the latest Insider Preview build I have on a VM at the moment in contrast to the 10240 RTM build you are running.

When going over that list you are looking at things like the Insider hub and other demo apps like handwriting, optical character recognition, text-to-speak, typing, etc. that are the typical pinned items you see from preinstalled MS apps as well as what you put on. These are more like what is seen with the Linux Mint Debian distro with some 200 optional packages you can select to see download and install. You have to remember those are all optional features and not what comes included with the basic 10. The hub is only downloaded once you have signed up for the Windows Insider Program there.

noten · 06 Nov 2015

so.... why do the icons show up as blank squares on my machine and how do I fix that?

Night Hawk · 07 Nov 2015

That's a different problem likely seen with 10 itself. Did you upgrade to 10 directly or see a second clean install afterwards once the upgrade was activated? If you are on the upgrade install that could account for the glitch there as the 10 installer simply didn't see everything go on as it should have. One option would be to simply look in the AllApps for each of the effect like the Weather tile is found under Windows Accessories being something tossed in as a freebie just like the Windows DVD Player which is only free with the upgrade installs as that will come afterwards as regular Windows update. For clean installs that runs for $30 at the MS online store!

As for the other MS tiles those seem a bit odd like something didn't go on fully for the MS app you would normally be seeing. Unpinning the problematic tiles and looking them up in the AllApps to pin again fresh may see the tile problem corrected on the spot and should be given a try. A right click on each to select the resize option first to small and then again to the medium or large might also refresh the tiles themselves.

noten · 07 Nov 2015

Night Hawk said:

That's a different problem likely seen with 10 itself. Did you upgrade to 10 directly or see a second clean install afterwards once the upgrade was activated? If you are on the upgrade install that could account for the glitch there as the 10 installer simply didn't see everything go on as it should have. One option would be to simply look in the AllApps for each of the effect like the Weather tile is found under Windows Accessories being something tossed in as a freebie just like the Windows DVD Player which is only free with the upgrade installs as that will come afterwards as regular Windows update. For clean installs that runs for $30 at the MS online store!

Upgraded from 7, then reinstalled over the upgrade. Freebie version both times.

Night Hawk said:

As for the other MS tiles those seem a bit odd like something didn't go on fully for the MS app you would normally be seeing. Unpinning the problematic tiles and looking them up in the AllApps to pin again fresh may see the tile problem corrected on the spot and should be given a try. A right click on each to select the resize option first to small and then again to the medium or large might also refresh the tiles themselves.

Tried that, no go. Plus, I also have what I believe is the underlying issue of not seeing Metro Icons at all, either in the taskbar or in other system areas, like Apps & Features under Settings.

Night Hawk · 08 Nov 2015

Sounds like the Upgrade to Repair which was the first 10 install to follow the initial upgrade still came out not quite as well as hoped! It boils right back to getting a clean install going first especially now that the upgrade install is no longer necessary as well as having already seen 10 activated. I just activated an Insider Preview build on a VM using a key for a change while that was an upgrade over the previously unactivated Insider build over the 10240 RTM! and so far not once glitch seen while physical upgrade installs seem to end up about 33% success rate without bugs of one type or another.

I now that can be a real pain in der kister to hear! Many wondered how to get 10 on clean from the start until the guide was posted. They didn't want to run into these kinds of problems. This is why I suggested trying the refresh method of first removing the item completely to then see it put back on fresh to get a fresh icon going.

If a few icon files got corrupted or lost or never even put on as they should even following the repair install this would avoid a complete full install just to get them in plain view. Sometimes however when things end up simply becoming unsolvable that may your only option. Think that's tough! Many a year back it was XP Bugs are Us Forever! where you learned fast how to have a disaster recovery plan at all times! There wasn't hardly any system imaging options available besides Norton Ghost or Acronis back then you had to buy separately when you thought you had everything running 100%. Clean installs to fix things were about the only option!

noten · 08 Nov 2015

I hear ya.

Nazbuster · 11 Mar 2016

sbudaj said:

Whenever I run a Windows 10 specific app, such as Edge, Store, Weather, etc, It opens properly, but the icon on the taskbar is simply a square with a line under it if it is active and only the line shows when it is inactive. If I pin a Windows 10 app to the taskbar, there is no icon at all. All other programs have the proper icon in the taskbar.

Is there a way to get the Windows app icons to show in the taskbar?

Thanks.

I just had a similar issue right after installing Win10 over Win7. I went online with MSFT support and they uninstalled Classic Shell (which I had loaded to get as much of Win7 back as possible) and the issue went away.

I then Re-Installed Classic Shell and right-clicked on the Start button to select Settings. Changing the COLOR of the start bar revealed the missing elements! The start bar was defaulted to all white and the system icons are all drawn in white.

noten · 12 Mar 2016

Nazbuster said:

I just had a similar issue right after installing Win10 over Win7. I went online with MSFT support and they uninstalled Classic Shell (which I had loaded to get as much of Win7 back as possible) and the issue went away.

I then Re-Installed Classic Shell and right-clicked on the Start button to select Settings. Changing the COLOR of the start bar revealed the missing elements! The start bar was defaulted to all white and the system icons are all drawn in white.

I've never had Classic Shell installed, so I don't think that's my problem with this issue. Thanks for the suggestion, though.

Nazbuster · 12 Mar 2016

noten said:

I've never had Classic Shell installed, so I don't think that's my problem with this issue. Thanks for the suggestion, though.

The issue wasn't so much classic Shell itself, but that the Theme left me with a white taskbar and no way to change its color. At least classic Shell allows you to change the taskbar color out side of the personalize feature of windows 10.

Hope you can resolve your problem. None of the suggestions I found on the web did.

I can't believe Microsoft took away the tailorability that we used to have in windows XP and Windows 7

Speedy Charlie · 25 May 2016

is your problem already solved? It's my problem too and I can't find any solutions on the internet.
See below an example of my problem

Missing Taskbar Icons

Invisible taskbar icons