Forum Discussion
Why are almost all my Windows 10 icons showing as generic placeholders?
Why did almost every icon on my Windows 10 Pro PC suddenly turn into a generic placeholder, including desktop icons, File Explorer icons, most app icons, and even the icons shown next to processes in...
That usually points to a corrupted icon cache. A simple first step is to restart Windows Explorer, and if that doesn’t help, rebuilding the icon cache can force Windows to generate the icons again. It’s also worth checking whether the issue started after a recent update or software install.