Windows 10: Some icons are missing in settings panel!

Hi!
I had some trouble with fonts (some of them were not readable and got unusable message). I spent a full day to reset and fix things as they were, but at the end I discovered, that the Win 10 settings panels are missing some icons (they are displayed as a box and seems like a font missing there) I tried several options: I did a reset to the the system fontcache, unpacked and copy/pasted the (windows/Fonts) folder from installation cd but nothing happened. Regedit seems to show the correct amount of installed fonts (at the moment reinstalled system fonts and nothing more). So my knowledge is over now and I would like to know if there is a possibility to fix it... Here's the screen:
Dropbox - W10

For 20 years I fixed all my computers myself, but win 10 finally got it!

:)

 

SOME desktop icons are missing, but some still there

is this still ongoing?

 

SOME desktop icons are missing, but some still there

Thanks for this but it still didn't change anything - this solution would seem to be for ALL the icons disappearing and not showing. In my case, most of them weren't appearing BUT SOME STILL SHOWED. So it wasn't like a 'Hide' had been turned on.

BUT when I opened a folder, all files appeared in the 'Desktop' folder, as opposed to just visibly on the actual Desktop.

Since then, they've reappeared. But this has happened before. Just wondering what I can do if it happens again.

Thanks

Andy

 

Hi, I'm wondering what the underlying cause of that was.

I suggest you start by doing some absolutely routine checks.

Check your disk - download Hard Disk Sentinel (trial) and post a screenshot of its GUI
To post a screenshot use the Insert Image icon above your post to the left of the video icon
(If unsure, see the tutorial in the Tutorial section - search screenshot)

Make sure all disks are reported as good.
If not, do not continue, and post back .

And with this in case sthg has happened to your file system:

From an admin command or powershell prompt
[Windows key + X, click command prompt (admin)]
chkdsk C: /F
Your PC will need to restart.
Post back the result, which you can get after a restart as follows:
Read Chkdsk Log in Event Viewer in Windows 10 Windows 10 Performance Maintenance Tutorials
or
How to read Event Viewer log for Chkdsk in Windows 10 [Tip] | Reviews, news, tips, and tricks | dotTechdotTech
or
How do I see the results of a CHKDSK that ran on boot? - Ask Leo!
Make sure the result is clear or fixed- else do not proceed.

And then from an admin command or powershell prompt run
sfc /scannow

and post the summary result.

If all that's ok, please create a new user for test purposes and see if you see the same thing then.

If you do, an in-place upgrade repair install would probably fix it.

For interest (I can't tell if anything may be relevant to you)
missing icons on settings choose icons to appear on taskbar Solved - Page 2 - Windows 10 Forums

 

Did all the harddisk tests: system SSD is in excellent condition.

Well, I roughly guess what caused the font problems (different font manager programs didn't get along probably).

So it seems to be related to the fonts after all. What I did before it happened: I unpacked Windows/Fonts folder from installation cd and copy/pasted it to system Fonts folder overwriting all fonts there. So I thought at least but... It seems that the system did not overwrite the font files but gave them just a new name like AgencyR_0.ttf during the font installations. The old ones are still there but hidden somehow. I think that causes the conflict. Now Regedit shows the 0-s and 1-s after the font names as well.

Any ideas how to fix that?

 

Well, normally you would install fonts (rt click, Install), but that should have been ok. Did you do that as Admin?

 

Yes, I'm admin of my computer. I tried to reset fonts to system fonts only. I cleaned up font list in Regedit but I was unsure about all the fonts that the system needed were there after my actions. So I found a forum solution that suggested the overwriting move.

I'm usually using Corel's Bitstream Font Navigator to install fonts so that system font folder stays intact.

I'm thinking about booting some PE system in order to sort the font folder out... After all there's always possibility to reinstall the OS.

I'll keep you posted.

 

You've probably seen this:

 

I got it fixed!
I have seen font settings restore option and tried it but it did not fix anything. It seems not to work as people think it would.

I used Gandalf’s Win10PE and booted it from USB stick. As I correctly assumed, the system (Windows/Fonts) folder had renamed duplicate font files in it (original ones were hidden even if you had folder options set show hidden files). Now the trick in windows 10 is, that the system fonts were not deletable even with booted Gandalf system. Only copied and renamed fonts were deleted. So I did delete copied fonts. Booting windows again resulted messed up fonts but i felt relief as I saw it. Next I opened Regedit and manually fixed the font names by deleting _0 and _1 from the font names. Everything went back to normal... almost. Because in Regedit the installed number of font will not match the font amount you see in your system. As I said some system fonts with numeric names are hidden in Fonts folder even if show hidden files is enabled. If you delete the font key in Regedit it kind of disappears from system Fonts folder but it will be still there. So therefore it's very hard to set all the font keys correctly. I think there are some small failures still there but most programs are showing only default system fonts, which is what I wanted in the first place. Only Photoshop behaves (even after cleaning the font cache) strangely with few system fonts.

So the page that got me into this trouble: Windows 10 Pro Default Fonts Download | withsteps.com

suggests wrong methods for font replacing/resetting and system font replacing should be better avoided (it's probably possible if you take the ownership of the Fonts folder).

 

Well done... and to give yourself a quick means to recover without arcane technical trickery, I recommend you start using disk imaging routinely, which we strongly recommend.

E.g. Macrium Reflect (free) + its boot medium + external storage for disk image sets.

You can recover from ransomware, a failed or unbootable or corrupt disk, and even user error. Images also act as backups.