icons of shortcuts pinned to Start11 taskbar frequently turn into file icons

from Stardock Forums

I know this was discussed before, but I can't find the post.  Frequently, icons of shortcuts pinned to my Start11 taskbar turn into file icons. I know this has happened to the notepad and sticky notes shortcuts, along with others. Although I am usually able to solve the problem, it always comes back at some point.  I have uninstalled and re-installed Start11, cleared the icon cache, restarted explorer.exe, etc.  

My computer has 64-bit Windows 11 Pro, version 22H2, OS build 22621.963, and I have version 1.26 of Start11.

Suggestions?

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4,125 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Hello,
Sorry to hear you are having issues. Don't see it happened on my Windows 11 VM system yet. But, any suggestion steps that I can take to try to reproduce it on my system?

Also, how do you pinned those "changing icons" apps into your taskbar? For me, I usually just lunch the app I want to pin to taskbar, via Startpanel or Window explorer. Once launched, on that app taskbar button, I right click on it and select "pin to taskbar"

Thanks
Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant.

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

I've pinned them in various ways, but I just removed one and followed your instructions to add it back and it didn't help.  I don't know how you can reproduce it on your system.  Ah well.

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Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

Any idea when the changing of icons happened? Any specific things you notice. After Windows update? Does reboot help? Does the icons change back after sometimes. More details please.

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

Nothing helps. I have spent lots of time on this already and just decided to go back to the Windows 11 taskbar.  Thanks

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

I was able to resolve this issue on my PC.

I am running Windows 10 22H2 (19045.2486) and experienced this issue when using the Windows 11 style Start Menu. For no apparent reason, many of my pinned applications lost their icons, showing a blank white paper icon. I also tried rebuilding the icon caches with no success. It seems possible that the icons may have been impacted by application updates, breaking icon links even though the shortcuts themselves still launch the applications.

I was able to resolve this on my PC by right-clicking the broken icon on the Start Menu, expanding "More", then clicking "Open file location". This will launch an Explorer window to a folder of Start Menu shortcuts. You will see the related shortcut with a working icon here. You can right-click it and click "Pin to Start11". This will add a new pinned item with a working icon, and you can delete the old one.

I hope this helps - the issue had me scratching my head for a couple of days.