Vista: How to Rebuild the Icon Cache

Contributed by shamanstears August 19, 2008  
Tagged: Microsoft Vista

If you run into a situation where your icons aren’t displaying correctly, you may need to rebuild the icon cache. The icon cache can become corrupt but is simple to delete the cache so that Vista will rebuild it.

1. You need to make sure that your system files aren’t hidden.

2. Open Computer.

3. Browse to
C:\Users\\AppData\Local

where username is the name of the current user.

4. Right click on IconCache.db and select Delete.

5. When prompted, click Yes to confirm.

6. Close the window and empty the Recycle Bin.

7. Restart your computer.

8. Once your computer has started back up, the icon cache will be rebuilt and your icons should now display correctly.