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After a recent update, notepad app lost its icon: it is not displayed in the corner of the window:

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in the taskbar:

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in the file system and basically everywhere (the screenshot below is for C:\Windows)

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What could be wrong and what can I do about this? Notepad is not an UWP app if I understand correctly (and notepad is the only app that lost its icon as far as I can see); for start menu (I'm using Open Shell) I tried to set the icon manually and it tells that "notepad.exe doesn't contain icons":

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and the list from SHELL32.dll doesn't seem to contain the icon as well:

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(well, I won't make screenshots covering the whole set, but you got the idea)

May be somebody knows where it should be located? Could it be located in C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs itself? (since I have Programs organized into folders of my liking, I've deleted some folders with links "restored" in Programs by update; but it would be weird to store the icon only there)

YakovL
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  • Are the files `\Windows\Notepad.exe` and `\Windows\System32\Notepad.exe` identical? Do you happen to have `signtool.exe` from Windows SDK on the system, and if you do, does `signtool verify /a /v C:\Windows\Notepad.exe` pass the check? – u1686_grawity Sep 30 '19 at 07:31
  • @grawity yeah, `Windows\System32\Notepad.exe` has an icon, thanks! – YakovL Sep 30 '19 at 07:35
  • @grawity Actually I had an app to calc hashes, but its "addition" in properties menu is missing for now, so can't check quickly – YakovL Sep 30 '19 at 07:41
  • I wasn't talking about hashes; without having the exact same Windows build/version at hand, I would have no way to tell if the hash is correct. The signature check however would be able to return "good/bad" all on its own. – u1686_grawity Sep 30 '19 at 07:59

3 Answers3

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Try refreshing the icon cache by executing the following command

ie4uinit.exe -ClearIconCache

for windows 10 use

ie4uinit.exe -show

Alternatively try this or this tutorial

veritaS
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  • thanks but grawity has pointed the right direction: `\Windows\System32\Notepad.exe` does have an icon and it was enough to pick that one – YakovL Sep 30 '19 at 07:42
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In the Properties of Notepad, click the button of Change Icon....

Enter as file name %windir%\system32\notepad.exe and press Enter to find your icon. Click OK twice.

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harrymc
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In my opinion the correct settings for Notepad.exe should better be:
Target: %windir%\system32\notepad.exe
Start In: %HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%
enter image description here

Victor Ivanov
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