Why do my shortcut icons get broken on Windows 7?

"I figured it out. Here's the answer:

Run ""regedit""
Go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
Change ""Max Cached Icons"" to 10000 or more. Upper and Lowercase SENSITIVE!
If it doesn't exist create it as new ""string""
Reboot

After that

Go to
""C:\Users\[Username]\AppData\Local""
Delete IconCache.db
Reboot again

Or try this solution that always works for me:

open cmd-console in admin mode
taskkill /IM explorer.exe /F
CD /d %userprofile%\AppData\Local
DEL IconCache.db /a
start explorer.exe via taskmanager

Edit 2016-05-07: Easiest solution: Link"

"Assuming that the paths are still valid, try right clicking on the shortcuts and go to the ""shortcut"" tab. Click on the change icon button, and see if the icon you want is in the list (if there is any list at all).

I don't know why Windows is losing track of the icon (It's happened to me a few times), but hopefully this will provide a workaround."

"You can easily bring all the icons on the desktop as described in the following:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3659-desktop-items-hide-show.html

Yes, it is tru, it is an InfraRecorder that makes them disappear."

"I'm on Windows 7 Professional, and have been struggling with this frustrating problem for a while now. I have tried the solution recommended here, and increasing the max cached icons seemed to fix it for a while, then the problem came back.

I finally mentioned it to my co-workers, and one of them said I should check my Windows PATH, and shorten it if it's very long. It turns out the system PATH was over 2500 bytes in length! I removed a lot of cruft and brought it down to about 1k in size, and voila! The problem has not appeared since."