my icons have changed for no reason

all the icons on my desktop have changed to a white box with a blue bar at the top, i tried various things in settings but no luck. i tried sys restore but it said it couldnt restore. xp2000 sp2 any ideas? thanks also they have changed in the start menu but anywhere else i look on my comp all the icons look like they should. i dunno weird

 

i got the icons back the way they should be on the desktop by going to properties/change icon/apply for each one. i tried doing the same for the ones in the start menu but they refuse to change.

 

You may have a corrupted icon cache.
If you delete it, Windows should rebuild a new one from scratch.
Delete the IconCache.db file from:- C:\DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS\ USERNAME\LOCAL SETTINGS\APPLICATION DATA\IconCache.db (where USERNAME is your account name).

 

wow thanks that fixed it, all is back to normal now. appreciate the help.

 

No problems. Glad it worked out.

 

Most (not all, maybe 90%) of my icons have changed into my Outlook 2003 icon, including shortcuts AND files. Folders remain folders and some shortcuts and files retain their original icons, but most have changed into the Outlook icon. I tried the fix listed on this thread with no luck. It's driving me crazy - please help me!

 

Hi kaymon
Try downloading and running Tweak UI, which you'll find here:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=226

Click the "Repair" link, then in the right pane of Tweak UI, click on the pull-down and choose "Rebuild Icons". Click "Repair Now"
Good luck.

 

Nope - didn't work. In fact, Tweak UI even has the cursed icon.