I'm experiencing similar issue as this user as SU:

http://superuser.com/questions/955586/windows-10-blank-start-menu-icons

 

Many (most) of my icons in the start menu display the standard empty file icon:

 

 

When I click on All Apps there are empty file icons like that all over the place.

My Windows 10 installation is an update over Windows 8.

The SketchUp icon you see is from an application I installed after updating to Windows 10.

 

I know about Start10 - I used to use Start8 - however, I'm still trying out the native start menu and I'm trying to figure out what causes this. I updated on an old laptop of mine as well, dual boot - it had Win7 and Win8 - both are not Win10 and all the icons there are fine.

 

I have IconPackage installed and repairing the icon cache has not worked.

 

Anyone else experienced this?


Comments
on Oct 04, 2015

Iconpackager is not compatiable with Windows 10. Could that be the issue?

on Oct 05, 2015

believe it or not I had the same problem with win 10 when I first upgraded. But along with the icon problem I had display flashing and could not pin icons to start menu. Ok enough said about I did however uninstalled Win 10 upgrade and got a new upgrade. Same thing happened again and could not believe it. Finally I said enough with the upgrade and did a full clean install of Win 10 and I backed up my old drivers from Win 7 and did not allow Win 10 to install drivers I installed them myself. Now after that all is well I have perfect icons ,display is correct and I can pin icons anywhere. Using my old drivers did the trick and then I updated the drivers myself after the install. Good to go

on Oct 05, 2015

IconPackager is not compatible with Win10. It's very possible that may be the cause.

on Oct 05, 2015

First apply the default icons as well as IP will allow.

 Second UNINSTALL IP, it is NOT compatible with Windows 10 yet.

 Third: Go to 'Start' open run command, type in Regedit. (Or just type Regedit in the search box)
In the new window of Registry Editor go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shellex and delete the subkey/folder 'IconHandler'

Restart your computer.

on Oct 05, 2015


Anyone else experienced this?
This has been a long standing problem with IconPackager, particularly on uninstall dating back to at least 2008.

https://forums.wincustomize.com/331217/page/1/#3434612 

 Apparently, Win10 doesn't like that reg key at all.

 Just do a forum search for blank white  icons.

on Oct 07, 2015

Right - I think I had IP installed while I had Win8. Simply to change the icon of one or two file formats.

I uninstalled IP.

Rebooted.

Opened Regedit, backed up that key and deleted it.

Rebooted.

Still white icons in the start menu. (Not anywhere else though.)

 

Might the icon cache need rebuilding? And how do you do that in Win10 without IP? (Searches for rebuilding icon cache tend to point back to IP...)

on Oct 07, 2015

Still not sure how to rebuild icon cache on Win10 - appear to have changes since previous versions.

Just to clarify though - it's only the Start menu that display blank icons - the rest if fine. When I open the folder containing the start menu shortcuts they are all correct.

on Oct 07, 2015

Oooh! So I think I might have found the last piece of the puzzle. 

At one point I right clicked on one of the links and use the Change Icon button - picking the same button it had.

Then I noticed after reboot it had updated.

I then tried via the console to touch all the *.lnk files in the Start Menu folder - and one by one they came back!

 

 

 

That being said - I had in a previous attempt used a batch script to delete all the IconCache*.db files in %USER%/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/Explorer. And run Disk CleanUp and deleted icon thumbnails.

Maybe one of those steps also had a play in this - not just issuing the touch command. But at least I got my icons back and I can visually tell them apart.

Thanks for your help and suggestions folks.

on Oct 07, 2015