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Monday 2 May 2011

Clear Icon Cache 1.0.0.1

This is a tool I've written that helps with a bug in Windows Vista and Windows 7. The bug affects Windows and Explorer and can affect Opus by proxy.

For example, if you updated from Opus 9 to Opus 10 but still see the Opus 9 icon on your desktop or taskbar, this tool should fix it.

ClearIconCache will cleanly exit Explorer, delete the shell icon cache (IconCache.db) and then restart Explorer.

Windows is full of icon-caching bugs which mean it frequently shows incorrect, missing or out-of-date icons for programs and shortcuts on the desktop, taskbar, start menu, etc. When that happens, simply run this tool to fix things up.

There are lots of guides on the web about how to do this manually but many of them have the details wrong. Even the good guides almost never tell you how to cleanly exit Explorer and are too complex for many users. (As well as using Task Manager and/or Command Prompts, you have to exit explorer, delete the file, then restart explorer in the right order or nothing will happen.) On the other hand, you just double-click this EXE and it does the rest.

ClearIconCache is only for Windows Vista and Windows 7 (and presumably later versions). Users on earlier versions of Windows can use TweakUI instead.

To prevent message-boxes telling you if the program succeeded or failed, run ClearIconCache.exe /QUIET

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