Windows 10: Missing Taskbar Icons

Whenever I run a Windows 10 specific app, such as Edge, Store, Weather, etc, It opens properly, but the icon on the taskbar is simply a square with a line under it if it is active and only the line shows when it is inactive. If I pin a Windows 10 app to the taskbar, there is no icon at all. All other programs have the proper icon in the taskbar.

Is there a way to get the Windows app icons to show in the taskbar?

Thanks.

:)

 

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Action Center forced to disable

Hello,

As Action Center icon is missing from taskbar, see if this registry fix helps you:

[FIX] System Icons Missing From Taskbar In Windows 8 Or Later

Hope this helps, Good luck

 

I would suggest a run of the System File Checker tool since you have a Windows related problem there for sure! With Edge coming already pinned to the Start and task bar alike and having unpined Edge I just repinned it quickly here without any issue. You may have either a system file in need of replacement or a registry glitch of some type.

First to rule out or confirm a system file is missing or not if not corrupted in some way possibly from a bad or impartial upgrade to 10 you will want to right click on the Start button itself and scroll down to either of the command prompt options the "Command(Admin)" being the preferred and once opened up type in "sfc /scannow" to see the scan with the system tool find anything needing to be replaced.

Another possible but uncertain fix would be found in the guide to take all of the Taskbar Pinned Apps- Reset and Clear in Windows 10 in order to try repinning each one to see if the bug is in the system registry itself since once everything is reset you should be able to pin them fresh since the original likely tainted contents in the registry will be removed as far as some possible goofed up entries there. Since pinning and unpinning is mainly controlled by way of the system registry the idea is to see the registry itself get refreshed by new entries once the original are tossed! Hopefully this can resolve the icon issue between that and the SFC tool checking for anything else missed.

 

OK. I ran sfc and no errors were found. I followed the instructions for resetting the taskbar, but that didn't work either. Anytime I open a Windows 10 app, it still shows on the taskbar as an empty box with a line under it (when active) or an invisible box when inactive.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks.

 

Also, now there is a new issue. When I open an app that is already pinned to the taskbar, it creates another icon in the taskbar with the line under it. The original icon remains on the taskbar (without a line) so there are 2 icons for each open app. The one that is pinned to the taskbar and the one that is created when the app is open.

What's up??

Thanks.

 

If you right click on the task bar itself does the properties screen appear? When bringing that up the option to Always combine taskbar buttons as well as Combine when taskbar is full and Never combine are three options. If somehow that got changed to the Never combine setting that would explain the appearance of the second button.





The sight of a line rather icon however suggests something goofed in the system registry. If you had a good restore point made for this was first seen you could roll everything a day or week even before it was first seen. Also take notes on everything other then 10 updates that went on just before seeing this in case a 3rd party app is the culprit.

 

I checked and the option to combine taskbar items was checked. I changed it and changed it back, but it didn't help. I now realize that it isn't all programs that cause this behavior. It is Mozilla Firefox. Other apps are OK. If I click on the Firefox icon that is pinned to the taskbar, it opens another instance of Firefox. I tried to unpin it and re-pin it, but the same behavior. Maybe something weird with the latest update to Firefox?

The issue with the invisible icons for Windows 10 apps has occurred since upgrading to Windows 10. When I first upgraded, (since I had upgraded other computers), I realized that the Store and Edge icons were missing. On moving my cursor around, it turns out that the icons were there, they were just invisible. So I have no restore point to go back to.

 

Here I use Waterfox here which was the 64bit flavor derived by a source completely independent from Mozilla and the 32bit platform seen with FF. I never run into any of those issues but ever since the upgrade to 10 I find that when clicking on a link instead of seeing any new window or tab open up I end up moving off the page where I was! I have to right click on each link now instead still using the latest as well as rolling back to older versions as well as being seen with IE.

As for the missing icons problem the one time I saw that was with the initial upgrade on the laptop where the Start button was invisible as well as the Settings screen being totally blank and no access to the AllApps! But being the 3rd upgrade I knew that the upgrade was immediately being replaced by a fresh clean install anyways and simply nuke the upgrade once I found it activated.

That tells me your problem there is also from a buggy install of 10 and without any option to roll back the reg or not knowing the registry values required you may end up needing to also see that next clean install take place unless opting for the upgrade to repair type install. Here I would have simply called it a day already and simply nuked the buggy copy of 10 to slap on a clean install by now! This is also why I have a pair of 2tb storage drives since that allows me to nuke the OS drive at any time without worry!

Here the MS store and Edge items were simply unpinned from the task bar once I had the first look at Edge and knew that wasn't ready yet! I simply went into the IE folder and pinned the 64bit flavor of that on the task bar instead to have the second browser option. "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\iexplorer.exe" is what to right click on and see pinned in the Start as well the task bar! The 32bit form is found in the Program Files(x86)\Internet Explorer there instead.

For you however it will come down to deciding on whether or not to see the upgrade to 10 replaced by the clean install. At the moment you may only be seeing this one problem only but running with a bugged up registry is bound to see other problem emerge sooner or later!

 

I'm having the same problem with 'Metro' icons. They don't show in the taskbar and they don't show within other apps. Shortcuts just show the generic page icon. The only place app icons show is in the start menu and those are really tiles.

Here's an example of what I'm dealing with:




I have tried scf (sfc?) scan and dsim, no luck. Have also tried everything mentioned in this thread. Nothing.

One suggestion that offered some promise was to look at the icon files to see if they look alright but didn't suggest anything beyond that. I browsed to C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\microsoft.windowscommunicationsapps_17.6310.42251.0_x64__8wekyb3d8bbwe\images and found some icon files that seemed ok but then a bunch that appeared blank:




Any thoughts?

 

Hello noten Welcome to the Ten Forums!

The items you see the Manage Apps and Features wouldn't be seen on the main Taskbar to begin with. There's a "+" Plus button in there to add new apps you can use to put back whenever got knocked out. That's how you go about adding anything new into that area.
For anyone signed up for the Windows Insider Program you would look in there to see if the "Insider hub" is present to continue receiving the newer builds through the updates.

 

Thanks, but I think you miss my point: Metro icons are invisible BOTH in taskbar AND in other situations where they are presented as anything other than tiles, like in the Manage Apps and Features window.

My question is: how do I get Metro App icons (I don't even know if that's what they're called anymore) to show up at all? They don't show on the taskbar, they don't show on the desktop, they don't show on any list that should be displaying them.

Peent.

 

Anything Metro would be MS online store related there. They act much more like HTML files and not desktop shortcuts you can easily trace back to the registry. It's like pinning web content to the Start tile section there. The option to add simply brings up another screen presently loaded by default with options for fonts and not any apps at least on the latest Insider Preview build I have on a VM at the moment in contrast to the 10240 RTM build you are running.

When going over that list you are looking at things like the Insider hub and other demo apps like handwriting, optical character recognition, text-to-speak, typing, etc. that are the typical pinned items you see from preinstalled MS apps as well as what you put on. These are more like what is seen with the Linux Mint Debian distro with some 200 optional packages you can select to see download and install. You have to remember those are all optional features and not what comes included with the basic 10. The hub is only downloaded once you have signed up for the Windows Insider Program there.

 

so.... why do the icons show up as blank squares on my machine and how do I fix that?

 

That's a different problem likely seen with 10 itself. Did you upgrade to 10 directly or see a second clean install afterwards once the upgrade was activated? If you are on the upgrade install that could account for the glitch there as the 10 installer simply didn't see everything go on as it should have. One option would be to simply look in the AllApps for each of the effect like the Weather tile is found under Windows Accessories being something tossed in as a freebie just like the Windows DVD Player which is only free with the upgrade installs as that will come afterwards as regular Windows update. For clean installs that runs for $30 at the MS online store!

As for the other MS tiles those seem a bit odd like something didn't go on fully for the MS app you would normally be seeing. Unpinning the problematic tiles and looking them up in the AllApps to pin again fresh may see the tile problem corrected on the spot and should be given a try. A right click on each to select the resize option first to small and then again to the medium or large might also refresh the tiles themselves.