Windows 10: Shortcut Arrow Icon - Change, Remove, or Restore in Windows 10

Try re-downloading the .reg file from Option One. It was updated to allow pinning icons to the taskbar.

There's a note under Option 2:

"If you do not have the Shell Icons key, then right click or press and hold on the Explorer key, click/tap on New, click/tap on Key, type Shell Icons for the name, and press Enter."

 

Thanks m8 i musta missed all this somehow - doh LOL

 

I'm glad you got it sorted Pormak, and welcome to Ten Forums. *Smile

 

If anyone tried Brink's solutions but still hasn't been able to get rid of the transparent squares, try using

as the data value for 29 instead. This fixed the issue for me beautifully.

Thanks to all those who have been updating this thread.

 

Followup: found the culprit for the transparent square issue. Both the registry edit and the direct fix in the OP use a resource from imagres.dll in System 32. I went into that file and found this at imageres.dll,-17:



Emphasis mine.

The bad news is that both solutions in the OP are drawing from that resource, which is definitely not a transparent image. So I think that everybody who's used either solution will have the transparent squares, whether they've noticed them or not.

The good news is that it's only using the wrong image, not screwing with anything deeper, so the fix is simple. imageres.dll doesn't have any completely transparent images - just a few ones that are passable at first glance - so you have to go into shell32.dll, where the other shortcut icons are located. Anything between %windir%\System32\shell32.dll,-50 and shell32.dll-53 is transparent and will work. You can also use any of the other .ico files located there.




Soothing trees, to calm my wrath after dealing with this thing.

 

shell32.dll,-50 shell32.dll,-51 shell32.dll,-52 aren't transparent for me. they're images or printers or such. I guess I'll just use a custom blank .ico.

edit: I'm stupid, I was using imageres.dll instead of shell32.dll values

 

Hi All,

Still doesnt work for me ? I tried the new .reg file but it still stops me pinning icons to the taskbar ? Also tried the reg addition ....shell32.dll etc (incidently I have a shell icons folder in my registry now?) which worked for a while but then after a recent restart I had black boxes where the shortcut arrows should have been!

Guess I'll just stick with the arrows

Mick

 

Hello Mick, *Smile

Did you restart the PC afterwards to fully apply to see how it works then?

 

Just tried all your variations, Brink, but the only thing that worked was Ace's suggestion of changing the shell icons entry to shell32.dll,-50

That seems to work with the minimum alterations to the registry.

Bob Frost

 

Aaaagh!! OK after one reboot, but after a second or third, I get black squares.*Mad

 

Yep, that's why I left the tutorial to use the transparent icon with outline for now. *Sad

 

Not to be nitpicky ("But you are, Blanche, you ARE!") but you don't need to reboot to apply the changes, you can just sign out (<Winkey+x>, <u>, <enter>) and sign back on. Can save time if you are doing a lot of experimenting and testing different Registry changes.

 

For safety sake...I make a new Restore Point before making the changes, another new immediately after, and then ShutDown/Cold Start to allow everything to come up with a clean memory.

Am I wrong in this?

 

For me, the black squares are present for a while after booting (5 minutes?) but then go away.
If that doesn't happen, try restarting File Explorer after a little bit.

Edit: Just tested, and squares persist for about 90 seconds after logging in (on my slow laptop) before disappearing.. You might just have to wait for a while.

 

Can you state this in the tutorial?