Here is a picture of my desktop:



This has been happening to my computer very slowly over the last few months, but it has become far more noticeable than it used to be. You can see what the icons on my desktop are supposed to be by the name of the program...but they have slowly just changed into the .exe icons instead of the program icon. Anyone ever hear of this problem before? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

-Thanks
Logan

Rebuild Icons...

IIRC it was in TweakUI

http://download.microsoft.com/download/ ... ySetup.exe

Yep, under Repair that should fix them.

I can't rebuild them...they have been completely changed within the program. Even in my start menu the icons all look the same as they do on my desktop. Like this:



Which is why I am asking if it is a virus, because there shouldn't be any other reason as to why this happens. I have no idea what to do...

Also I have run a virus scan with my virus program (ESET NOD32) and a scan with Spybot S&D. Nothing was found...

Windows maintains a cached copy of all the icons on the system to avoid having to reload the icons every time they are displayed. If this icon cache becomes corrupt then the wrong icons may be shown.

To clear the icons cache make sure you can view hidden files and then open your Windows directory in Explorer and delete the file called "ShellIconCache". ( Windows\system32\SHELL32.dll )

When you restart Windows the icon cache file will be automatically recreated.

Also - how old is your windows xp install?

A reason if I ever saw one to try out Win7!

Alright, I'll try that, thanks. Also my windows xp install is probably pretty old, but doesn't auto updates keep it up to date? It's a legit copy I bought from MB, so it should update without a problem.



hahaha yea, good call. I just don't have an external hard drive to save all my files/music so I can't reformat at the moment. Any good deals on any at MB?

Ok, I tried to search for the file "ShellIconCache" and it returned with no results found. I then navigated to this directory: (C:\WINDOWS\system32) and found the file "SHELL32.dll" but when I try and delete it, I get the error: "Access is denied make sure that the disk is not full or rights-protected blah blah blah." Did I do something wrong?

SIGHHHH

I always feel handicapped when it comes to these kind of problems...I downloaded that unlocker program, right clicked on the SHELL32.dll file and clicked unlocker. Then the list came up, I clicked unlock all, and then after a few seconds the same exact list just pops back up again and I still get the same error message when I try to delete the .dll file. Any more suggestions?

Try safe mode

You can always delete it by booting to a live linux cd, mounting your windows drive and deleting the file that way should you choose

Unlocker is not 100% but it sure is helpful to me at times..

http://www.ehow.com/how_5148528_delete-shelldll.html

Although I'm not entirely sure you actually want to delete this file.
Perhaps download TweakUI and try rebuilding first.

Pick up a hard drive, internal if need be - fire all the naked girl photos on to that and format.

Install Windows 7. You won't want to go back to xp afterward.