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Upgraded to Ver 1709 and now blank Windows App Icons on Taskbar

Hi,

So I had this problem where the Microsoft Apps taskbar icons like Store and Mail were blank, but still there, with previous versions, and the Start Menu was just missing most Windows Apps as well, and was completely fixed on ver 1703, and the problem is now back with ver 1709.

For me, it's not incredibly serious because I made desktop icons for every program I use and need on a regular and not so regular basis, including all the Windows 10 apps, and even though they now just have little blank sheets for icons, they still run, and even Mail and Store still run from the blank space on the taskbar, although you cannot minimize the apps because they just close if you try.

I've tried all the usual suggestions, disk scans, icon cache delete and restore, change icons, restart explorer.exe. I have no group policies set, and remarkably enough, even making a new user with new profile doesn't solve the problem either.

I tried the registry hack to reset the icons, but that didn't work either.

If anyone does figure this one out, please let me know. You don't need to re-hash the usual stuff which doesn't work. I even bought and installed new Firecuda hard drives. It feels like some weird permissions issue, but I can't seem to find it since they are built-in to the operating system, I think.

The interesting part here is that the issue was resolved with the 1703 update, but then came back with the 1709 update. Can anyone fix this?

Thanks.

*** Moved from Windows / Windows 10 / Windows settings ***

Hover over it and it should tell you what it is.

Then go Settings, Apps, what it is, click on it, click on Advanced options and Reset.  This may get the icon back.

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Around computers
since 1952
lacrumb

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Hi. Nope. Thank you for participating, though.

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I think it's pretty strange that the other day, before my very eyes, doing nothing actually at that point, all of a sudden the store icon appeared blinked on in the black space for Store on the taskbar.

Not so for the Windows 10 Mail app, which is still a blank taskbar icon, and most of the items, and almost but not all the Windows apps are just missing from my Start menu.

I've executed a number of tries so far, different Services tricks, Registry hacks, and am just hanging out for the next update which may or may not fix the problem.

It's pretty clear Microsoft doesn't actually know what the cause of this issue is, an so as long as my PC more or less works, it's not a catastrophic Windows 10 version 1709 error, but it's funny how it makes you think if they couldn't get this to work right, what else is still hidden, messed up, and will rear it's head up as a catastrophic problem eventually.

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Hi there,

I also got this problem. Is it similar to yours? Please check the inserted picture. The last three apps are from windows system and windows app store. Have no idea what happen. I also tried all your mentioned solutions but didn't work at all.

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It seems like re-installing Windows from scratch is rumored to work, but I can tell you that I did it several times on earlier versions, and it did not work.

With the latest 16299.98 OS Build of Version 1709, I have a lot of the functionality back, the Mail app and Store App appear again, but the only way to use the MSN news and Sports app is still to go to Store, where pin to Start is still grayed out, but the app can be launched from the Store.

I also traded out my AMD Radeon HD7950 video card for an Nvidia GeForce GTX 970, uninstalling all the Radeon software as well.

I can't put my finger on it, but this is one of those issues where something is getting caught up somehow with driver software perhaps or driver-OS interactions, and probably permissions preventing registry updates somehow also.

My advice is that whatever is working, or begins to mysteriously appear and work, immediately make a desktop shortcut of it. So far, that is the only way I've known to keep everything working in-between all the major updates, and maybe everything will mysteriously start working again on the next one, hard to say.

And, I think it's at least mostly desktop-related, too.

Sorry I can't help more. I keep hoping someone on the inside or who just knows a lot more about it will shed some light on this at some point.

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Last updated November 1, 2021 Views 1,479 Applies to: