How to rebuild Windows 7 / 8 / 10 icons

Moderators, Windows 10 FAQ should also link to this.

Windows 7/8/10 each have their own separate icon Rebuild methods.
Rebuild your Windows icon cache: Make this file so it can rebuild your icons when you double click on it. Enter the following into Notepad and save it, then change the extension of the saved file to .bat


View attachment Rebuild7-8-10.zip


• WINDOWS 10 Rebuild10.bat file:


@echo off
set iconcache=%localappdata%\IconCache.db

echo.
echo Please SAVE ALL OPEN WORK before continuing.
echo.
echo It will take a few seconds for icons to reappear.
echo.
echo.
echo Next time you reboot, icon cache will be rebuilt.
echo.
echo.
pause
echo.
If exist "%iconcache%" goto delete
echo.
echo The IconCache.db file has already been deleted.
goto restart


:delete
echo.
echo Attempting to delete IconCache.db file...
echo.
ie4uinit.exe -ClearIconCache
taskkill /IM explorer.exe /F
del "%iconcache%" /A
start explorer.exe
echo.
echo IconCache.db file has been successfully deleted.

exit /B



• WINDOWS 8 Rebuild8.bat file:


@echo off
taskkill /IM explorer.exe /f
cd /d %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows
del /f /s /q Explorer\IconCache *.*
start explorer.exe



• WINDOWS 7 Rebuild7.bat file:


taskkill /im explorer.exe /f
CD %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local
attrib -h iconcache.db
del iconcache.db
explorer.exe

what are you doing to your poor icons that they need to be refreshed?

This is very useful to people who know exactly what this is for.
The point is that methods change from 7 to 8 to 10. It took a while to figure this out when Windows 8 came out, I believe it was done right here at ocforums by redduc900 who figured out the method for Windows 8, there were no internet hits for Windows 8 before redduc900 figured it out here...

People who use custom icons need to reset the icon cache from time to time so they show up correctly...