Gray squares replacing app icons in taskbar

Hi RogatkaWR,

Thank you for reaching out here in the Microsoft Community.

According to your screenshot and description, some of the apps' icons are displayed as gray squares in your taskbar.

I noticed that you checked the files for these apps and it seems that they are missing the display files for the icons.

Thank you for your efforts to resolve this issue, and I do understand the frustration that these apps are currently not displaying their icons correctly in the taskbar.

We have determined that this may be an error in your icon cache, please refer to the following steps to clear the icon cache (after clearing, the system will regenerate it)

1 Open File Explorer, find View at the top, click and then point to Show, select Show hidden items in the multi-select box

2 Then enter the following path in the address bar and press enter

C: \%userprofile%\AppData\Local

Find the file “IconCache” in this path and delete it.

3 Enter the following path in the address bar and press enter.

C: \%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer

Find all files containing “iconcache” in this path and delete them.

4 After deleting the files, close File Explorer and restart your computer to see if the icon display error still exists.

If the problem still exists, then the account profile may be incorrect, please refer to the following link to create a new local administrator account

Manage user accounts in Windows - Microsoft Support

See if the same issue occurs in the new local account.

If it still occurs, then we need to fix the system further, please refer to the link below to perform an in-place upgrade.

Disclaimer: Let’s try performing an in-place install or in-place upgrade which will refresh your Windows files and operating system without removing files or applications. That being said, we always recommend that if you have important data, you should back it up before making large system changes. If you want to back up your data first, please do so. Once you are done backing up, you can follow the steps in the following guides:

How to run In-place upgrade in Windows 11 - Microsoft Community

Please try the above and let me know the results. We will continue to help you.

Thank you for your understanding and support.

Best regards,

Zev - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

I deleted the IconCache file successfully, but the other ones are saying that they cannot be deleted because they are open in Windows Explorer, but I need Windows Explorer open to delete them. With that being said, my Settings app (the gray square furthest to the left in my screenshot) now has the right icon back, but with a black background and slightly shifted to the left. I can try to do an in-place upgrade if necessary.

Hi RogatkaWR.

Thank you for your reply.

I understand that you cannot completely remove the cache of app icons completely.

You can refer to the following link and try to enter safe mode

Windows startup settings - Microsoft Support

In Safe Mode, try to delete the cache of app icons directly in Explorer without opening any apps.

If the problem still persists, please try to create a new local administrator account or in-place upgrade as mentioned in the previous reply.

Thank you for your understanding and support.

Best regards,

Zev - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

After entering Safe Mode, it still wouldn't let me delete the cache files, so I went ahead and did an in-place upgrade. It seems to have changed something at least, since now the app icons are blank instead of being gray squares.

Hi RogatkaWR.

Thank you for your reply.

I understand that after your in-place upgrade, the app's icon changed from a gray box to transparent.

Have you tried creating a new local administrator account?

Do you have the same issue in the new local account?

To further determine if it is the missing icon file for each app, please select one of the apps that is having issues, uninstall it completely, and then re-download and re-install it on your computer to see if the same issue exists.

Please let me know the results of your new local account and reinstallation of the apps and we will continue to help you.

Currently, we are experiencing a similar issue on our test machine, and we have also had feedback from other users about this issue.

You can try some of the methods below

Reinstall the AppX package via PowerShell

1 Search for “Windows PowerShell” in the taskbar, right-click, and select Run as administrator.

2Type in the following commands and press the Enter key

Get-AppxPackage -AllUsers | ForEach-Object {if ($_.InstallLocation) {Add-AppxPackage -DisableDevelopmentMode -Register “$($_. InstallLocation)\AppXManifest.xml” -Verbose}}

Then in the registry, change a few things

1 Search for “Registry Editor” in the taskbar, right-click, and select Run as Administrator.

2 Navigate to the following path

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.png

3 Look for items that contain at least one child item, if you see any child items, you may have found the item that is causing the problem, delete the child items under ShellEx.

4 Restart File Explorer

Please note that the actual key may not be named; this depends on the application that is causing the problem. The form is {A***C-A**1-1**9-A**F-1***6}.

Disclaimer: Generally, modifying registry subkeys or work group is intended for advanced users, administrators, and IT Professionals. It can help fix some problems, however, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For further protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click How to back up and restore the registry in Windows - Microsoft Support to view the article.

Thank you for your understanding and support.

Best regards,

Zev - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

I made a new local admin account and could not replicate the issues, and I also tested it on another admin account that already existed with the same results as the new admin account. After reinstalling the apps in question (except for the Settings app, since I cannot uninstall it in the first place), I had varying results: Spotify got its app icon back, but the Minecraft Launcher did not, even after a full reinstall. As I will be going to Thanksgiving dinner, I will not be at my computer to reinstall the AppX package or change the registry, so the earliest I will be able to do that is in a few hours after I get back, but I will try it this evening.