HELP:Desktop Icons,gone blue???

[hauntedscientist]

Hi!

all of a sudden my desptop icons have gone blue. i cant get them to default as it was in WinxXP???! i didnt change the colors of the icon ever??

pls let me know how to get it ,,back?

dnt think any malware or virus is in,,cause i have AVG,Spydoctor,LAwasoft.

thnks

[Mickwish]

The pics on the icons, or the text underneath?? What has turned blue?

Cheers
Mick

[hauntedscientist]

the background of the icon and the background of the Text underneath each icon on the desktop has turned blue!

thnks

[johnnyis42]

even after reboot?

[doddsy]

start--control panel--system-advanced--performance settings--let windows choose

should get them back to normal.

[hauntedscientist]

yess even aftr reboot,,its same!

doddsy, i even tried wht u said,didnt work even whn i went to contrl panel/system/advnced/settings/let winds choose.???!!!

any ideas guys?

[no1_vern]

Have you tried:Right-click the desktop, Arrange Icons By, by name.
Also make sure that active desktop>show web content is NOT selected.
Also try changing your desktop from "true color" to "high color" and see what happens.
The reason that Doddsy suggested rebooting is because the icon cache file IconCache.db [formally called ShellIconCache in 9x]. Doing this usually works. The file usually rebuilds when you reboot. You might want to try and delete this file. Deleting this file now and again shouldnt hurt anything the system will just make a new one.

AS a last resort you could right-click on desktop>desktop >customize desktop> click on each icon> restore default for a very tedious but maybe effective method of getting them back to the default state.

[hauntedscientist]

tried tht too, didnt work???

do u think i need to format my HDD!!! gosh

[johnnyis42]

so, just the icons are blue? there's no other color problems with anything else, pictures and web pages still look the same?

[holdensrule]

Try creating either another user account and logging in as them and see if the icons are fine in there (determine whethers is a profile or a system problem) - and if they are fine, I'd consider recreating your profile - much better than formatting your computer agian; thats just crazy talk

[Foggy]

Download and install Tweak UI, it has an option to rebuild icons

[johnnyis42]

i was too lazy to look up the manual fix for rebuilding the icon cache myself, but if tweakUI has that functionality i'd say it's the way to go.

if it doesn't work, definitely go with the profile idea (can't beleive i didn't htink of that!) as it will narrow down where the cause of the problem is.

[holdensrule]

if you do find out the cause, be sure to let us know, curiosity

[Byron172]

The same thing happened to me today while I was tweaking my mate's computer. I found this thread while I was researching the problem. At the bottom of this page in "Similar Threads" I found this piece of advice:

Try:
Control panel
System
Advanced
Performance
Settings
In the visual effects, click "Adjust for best performance"

I haven't had a chance to try it on my mate's computer yet, but hopefully it will work for you......if not there was some other good advice in the same thread "icons on desktop".
All the best.....

[1ellis2345]

Hi, don't know if anyone is still reading this, but i had the same problem and solved it by - right clicking on the desktop - click on "arange icons by" - then uncheck "lock web items on desktop" This worked for me, hope it helps.

Still no idea why it turned itself on screen saver also turned itself on, strange!!!

[anishluv]

To have transparent icons:

1) Hold down the Windows key and press Pause/Break. On the "Advanced" tab,
under "Performance" click "Settings." On the "Visual Effects" tab, make sure
the box "Use drop shadows for icon labels" is checked.

2) Right-click on the Desktop, and make sure that "Arrange Icons by" "Lock
Web items" is not checked.

3) Right-click on the Desktop, and choose Properties. Othe "Desktop" tab,
click "Customize Desktop," then on the "Web" tab, uncheck all boxes.

4) Make sure any Wallpaper is an image file. Html will stop the
transparency.

[Puddock]

This problem happened to me last night, for no apparent reason. I panicked at first, because I thought it must be a virus but I have fixed it now.

It appears to be a WIndows problem (so no surprise there!). All of the desktop icons turned into that little television described, except for some random WIndows icons, like Word. That suggested that it was a WIndows problem and gave me hope.

I tried everything suggested in this thread and nothing worked. What worked for me was this:

Went into Control Panel - Display-Appearance-Effects.
Checked Use Large Icons box and everything came back! Amazing!

After I was sure everything was back to normal, I then unchecked the box again and so far everything is still okay. Hope this works for you!

[boomer31]

I did some stupid stuff caught a virus or spyware, it changed my wallpaper and text under the icons are outlined in dark blue. I've ran a variety of spyware and virus programs which find something each time but doesn't seem to get rid of it. When I'm online the webpage I'm on will switch to something I've never heard of. When I look in iexplorer prop.s cookies it shows tons of pages I have not visited. If i delete them and comeback a few minutes later cookies is full again!

[SiliconJon]

Someone ran across a similar issue today on an XP Pro system. It was with a URL shortcut on the desktop, but it didn't turn blue - it turned into a red ball, which is not an icon at all associated with the site at the URL. Manually changing it back to the blue E for IE7 does not keep, so we will be trying the following:

• Deleting & recreating the shortcut
• Right-click desktop > arrange icons by > uncheck: lock web items on desktop
o Also: Display properties > Desktop > Customize > Lock Desktop Items
• Deselect “show web content” from Active Desktop settings
o (How to enable / disable windows active desktop.)
• Ctrl Panel > System > Adv > Perf > Settings > Visual Effects > toggle between settings to see if corrected icon remains
• Display > Appearance > Effects > Toggle icon size and/or settings
• Delete (or better yet rename *.old) IconCache.db

[jc67]

3) Right-click on the Desktop, and choose Properties. Other "Desktop" tab,
click "Customize Desktop," then on the "Web" tab, uncheck all boxes.

Many thanks Troopers