Windows 10: PDF icons on desktop turn into black squares

Discus and support PDF icons on desktop turn into black squares in Windows 10 Support to solve the problem; Hi all. My Windows 10 Pro x64 computer (v. 10.0.19042, Build 19042) has developed an odd problem. The desktop icon for PDF files (a wallpaper image of... Discussion in 'Windows 10 Support' started by howardg, Jan 27, 2021.

  1. howardg Win User

    PDF icons on desktop turn into black squares


    Hi all. My Windows 10 Pro x64 computer (v. 10.0.19042, Build 19042) has developed an odd problem. The desktop icon for PDF files (a wallpaper image of the first page of the file), turns to black after a period of time.

    If I right-click on the desktop, select "Display Settings", and change "Scale and Layout Size" to a different setting, such as 125%, the icon will then display properly for a short period of time, but will eventually revert to a black square. Resetting the scale again will always, but only temporarily, cure the issue.

    I have the latest drivers for my GeForce GTX 1070 Ti graphics card (NVIDIA Studio Driver v. 461.40)

    I have the latest Adobe Acrobat Reader DC (v. 2020.013.20074), and "Enable PDF Thumbnail Preview in Windows Explorer" is enabled. It is also set as the default program for opening PDF files.

    Also, I have deleted the icon cache several times using a batch file.

    Does anyone have any ideas on what's happening?

    Thanks.

    :)
     
    howardg, Jan 27, 2021
    #1

  2. Windows 10 desktop Icons are blotted with small black square

    Original title: My desktop Icons are blotted out with a small black square in them in Windows 10

    My desktop Icons are blotted out with a small black square in them in Windows 10
     
    MarianneCusick, Jan 27, 2021
    #2
  3. sammy Win User
    How to remove arrows from desktop icons in Windows 10 without getting black squares?

    Part 1 - Remove arrows once (will break on reboot or re-login)

    • Type regedit in the Windows search bar and select regedit at the top of the list.
    • In the regedit program, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
    • Right click on the Explorer folder, hover over New, then click Key. Name it Shell Icons and click enter or whatever to create it.
    • Click the new Shell Icons folder. In the right pane, right click on the empty space, hover over New, and click String Value. Name it 29.
    • Double click the String Value 29 you just created and give it the following value data: %windir%\System32\shell32.dll,-50
    • May or may not have to reboot I forget. Check your desktop icons first to see.

    Part 2 - Fix the black squares problem

    When you reboot or login after Part 1, where the arrows once were there will now be black squares. To permanently fix the black squares problem, a short script will run automatically every time you login to fix the icons before you see them. Non-programmers can easily follow these simple steps.

    • Open Notepad.
    • Paste in the following and save it to the desktop as fixdesktopicons.bat (name not important, file extension .bat is important). Basically it deletes the corrupted part of the icon data.

    • Press Windows key + r
    • Type shell:startup and press OK. This will open a folder where you can put scripts that you want to have run automatically whenever you login.
    • Copy the script (.bat file) from your desktop and paste it into this folder you reached by doing shell:startup.
    • Reboot the computer for changes to take effect.

    Now whenever you login or reboot there will be nice icons with no arrows and no black squares either.
     
    sammy, Jan 27, 2021
    #3
  4. sasebo99 Win User

    PDF icons on desktop turn into black squares

    Pdf files show as black icons on my desktop.

    After having installed Windows 10 Upgrade my .pdf file icons on my desktop appear black. When i first boot the machine, the .pdf files appear okay. However, within 1 second after boot is complete the icons turn black. This only affects the .pdf files.
    I have Adobe Reader XI Veer. 11.101.2 installed on my machine.
     
    sasebo99, Jan 27, 2021
    #4
Thema:

PDF icons on desktop turn into black squares

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