Rebuild Icon Cache in Windows (Vista and 7)

Rebuilding the Icon Cache Database (Vista / 7)

When desktop or Explorer icons go blank, generic, or flat-out wrong, the icon cache database is corrupt. Here is the classic Vista/7 fix:

• Close all folder windows that are currently open.
• Launch Task Manager using the CTRL+SHIFT+ESC key sequence, or by running taskmgr.exe.
• In the Processes tab, right-click the Explorer.exe process and select End Process; confirm.
• From Task Manager’s File menu, select New Task (Run…), type CMD.EXE, and click OK.
• In the Command Prompt, run these commands one by one:

CD /d %userprofile%\AppData\Local
DEL IconCache.db /a
EXIT

• Back in Task Manager, File → New Task (Run…), type EXPLORER.EXE, and click OK. Explorer restarts and rebuilds the cache from scratch.

Windows 10 and 11: the cache moved

From Windows 8 onward the single IconCache.db file is gone. The cache now lives in several iconcache_*.db files under %localappdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer, together with thumbcache_*.db for thumbnails. The same kill-delete-restart pattern still works:

taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
cd /d %localappdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer
attrib -h iconcache_*.db
del iconcache_*.db
start explorer.exe

Notes for the modern path: close the Explorer window first or some files stay locked (retry the del for any stragglers); the files are hidden, hence attrib -h; and if the corruption is thumbnail-related, delete thumbcache_*.db the same way. For a quick nudge without all this, ie4uinit.exe -show refreshes the icon cache on Windows 10/11 (on Windows 7 the flag was -ClearIconCache). A final restart of the PC always rebuilds everything cleanly if a file refuses to be deleted.