Windows 10: Desktop Icon Shortcut Overlay Randomly Changing

Hello everyone,



I'm running into a bug that is obscure, driving me nuts, and taken many hours of my time trying to find a fix. On Windows 10 Home, the shortcut overlay image on my desktop icons routinely changes every few minutes to a variety of icons, a small handful of some examples in the image attached. Is there anyone that may be able to help me? Being slightly obsessive about my computer and its organization, this behavior is annoying me quite a bit. I'm also the only user account on my computer. Some things I've tried so far:

1. 
   Refreshing the desktop restores the original shortcut overlay, but only for a few minutes.
   
   
2. 
   Norton Backup and subsequent overlay status is disabled; I don't use Norton Backup anyway.
   
   
3. 
   I don't use OneDrive and it is uninstalled from what I can see. I don't use Dropbox or any file Sync software either.
   
   
4. 
   Performed a sfc /scannow, running Command Prompt as an Admin. Resets the correct overlays for a few minutes only to exhibit the same beavhior later.
   
   
5. 
   Rebuilt IconCache.db via "attrib -h "%LocalAppData%\IconCache.db" && del "%LocalAppData%\IconCache.db" && taskkill /IM explorer.exe /F && timeout /T 1 && explorer.exe" running Command Prompt as an Admin.
   
   
6. 
   Manually deleted IconCache.db for it to rebuild.
   
   
7. 
   Performed Windows Updates, no new patches to download.
   
   
8. 
   Change desktop themes.
   

Performed restarts in between each of the steps above also. I'm also not running any kind of Windows Aero or tweaking software, nothing like that at least that I'm aware of, and can't attribute this behavior to any recent software installations.



Any help or advice at all would be most appreciate. Thank you so much! Hope everyone is staying healthy and well.





:)

 

BUG: Desktop shortcut icons, overlay keeps changing

I have this issue as well. Shortcut icon overlays sometimes disappear, sometimes change to some other icon. I tried running dism and sfc commands, but they didn't find any issues.

I have 2 applications that have custom overlays - Dropbox and TortoiseSVN. They were not causing issues on Windows 7 / 8, so I don't think they suddenly are an issue. Also I had
Stadock Fences 2 desktop organization software (also used before on Win 7/8), I though it might be an issue, but after disabling it, issues with shortcut overlays remained.

Windows 10 was installed as clean install, not upgrade.

When shortcut overlays are missing, opening right-mouse context menu on desktop and choosing "refresh" brings them back.

 

BUG: Desktop shortcut icons, overlay keeps changing

The problem seems to be fixed (at least partially) when I disable automatic start of OneDrive. I say partially because while the icon overlays aren't changing at random, the overlay still seems to alternate between the standard shortcut arrow and no overlay.
But at least there isn't a near continuous changing to random overlays.

I'm on Win10 Pro/64, version 1703.

 

BUG: Desktop shortcut icons, overlay keeps changing

I have the exact same issue.

I think its definitely related to these 2 apps. Onedrive & Dropbox.

If both apps are open, desktop shortcut overlay icons change

If I close one of the apps - icons keep changing, but slower (less frequent)

If both apps are closed - icons stop changing

I would like to know how to fix this, as I use both apps.