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Searching for an application in windows returns a result but the icon is not displayed. In the attached screenshots you can see that the icon is displayed if a manually navigate to the file, but not after a search result. I have tried to tinker around with the display and icon settings, but no useful outcome.

example working

Example not working

magicandre1981
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Vishera
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  • PS: the same thing happens to any other application. In the example, I've used Sway – Vishera Sep 03 '17 at 16:44
  • Does this happen only for metro apps? Did you delete/rebuild icon cache? – Biswapriyo Sep 03 '17 at 19:07
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    @Biswa It only happens to metro apps, more specifically, those that come preinstalled with windows. Office apps (word, excel) chrome and any other 3rd party work properly. Also, I have a clean windows installation. I haven't tried to rebuild the icon cache, but i know it was having this problem right after the windows installation. Windows was installed from microsoft website – Vishera Sep 03 '17 at 19:19
  • There's a [duplicate question on SU with an answer that solved the issue for me](https://superuser.com/questions/1319157/some-windows-10-uwp-icons-not-displaying-on-search-or-in-settings/1441161#1441161), that wasn't listed below. – svict4 Nov 14 '21 at 09:28

4 Answers4

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I post this as a tentative answer. Votes will tell whether it works for many people or not. I had the same problem: Windows 10 search would not show icons for pre-installed Windows apps such as Microsoft Store, Calculator, ..., while the icons where showing fine in the start menu. All other icons on my system were fine.

I had tried @Tom21487's answer before (I had set all performance options to "best appearance", and rebooted), with no luck. I have also tried to delete caches like here, including in addition "%localappdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer\thumbcache*", with no luck either. I am not saying these may not have been part of the solution, but they alone did not fix it.

Then, I stumbled upon this June 12, 2018 post (on page 5) by Leeron JVC:

Good day! Fortunately, I fixed mine changing the icon scale (Mine was at recommended 100% so whatever yours are I hope will apply to what I did too) from 100% to 125%. It didn't fix it so I just changed it back to 100%, and by my surprise, it was fixed!

So I should add that I am on a laptop computer with 150% recommended element size, which I tend to set to 125% while on a laptop, and Windows 10 is smart enough to set it to 100% for an external display. Anyway, I set the element size to 100%, and it worked - 150%, worked - back to 125%, still worked.

Here's Microsoft's official instructions on how to do this:

In Windows: Select the Start menu, then type change display settings in the search box on the taskbar. From the list of results, choose Change display settings and then choose the size under Scale and layout.

https://support.microsoft.com/help/4028566/windows-10-change-the-size-of-text

Finally, this "fix" survived my restoring performance settings to "best performance" (except font smoothing and drop shadows) and a reboot.

rocky
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    Thank you, this worked for me. I'd noticed only one icon "missing" when using the taskbar search menu to find its app to start it as I usually do. After switching from 100% to 125% and back, I have the icon back again. – RJH Nov 06 '18 at 05:55
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    I tried deleting the thumbnail cache for Explorer, as well as a handful of other things. Changing the "Scale and layout" under the Display settings is what fixed it for me. There's obviously another cache somewhere for the search results, and changing this causes that cache to be rebuilt. Thanks. – matthewpavkov Dec 10 '18 at 22:30
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    Thanks it worked for me too :) The problem occurred for me when I reset the Windows 10, it uninstalled few applications which I reinstalled later but they then id not displayed icon in search, your solution fixed that for me. Somehow doing that delete some cache somewhere. – Suraj Jain Dec 17 '18 at 05:19
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    Scaling trick worked for me. I had to make it 101%, restart, switch back to 100%, sign out and login again and everything was back to normal. I also had blank taskbar icons which were fixed by this https://www.reddit.com/r/SCCM/comments/6opus1/windows_10_upgrade_blankwhite_icons_and_shortcuts/ – Mrchief Mar 05 '19 at 15:11
  • “Sticky Notes” and “Settings” are also affected. – Franklin Yu Apr 18 '19 at 21:09
  • This did not work for me ... :( – Herb Caudill Apr 24 '19 at 12:13
  • Fixed with deleting thumnailcache, reboot and setting App size from 100 to 125 and back – Gidy Jun 21 '20 at 15:54
  • thank you so much, this worked, been banging my head for days :) – KetZoomer Oct 10 '20 at 16:13
  • Still worked for me, but had to perform a subtle adjustment of reducing the scale on the laptop display, and would only work once it was switched back to recommended. Also performed Tom's answer above, along with the deletion of iconcache* files. To further add to the confusion, I had also recently deleted Google's Backup and Sync (replacing it with File Drive). – ravemir Dec 21 '20 at 16:45
  • Wow. THIS works. I've had this problem for several years. Followed endless idiotic 'how to' guides, but this simple moving of the slider back and forth FINALLY fixed it. Thanks. You can get to the correct control panel by searching "Make text size bigger" in the start menu, then move the slider under the "Make everything bigger -> Change the size of apps and text on the main display" area – Schneider Mar 21 '21 at 10:40
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In my case.

Remove "Google Drive File Stream" (or, if you have it, Backup and Sync from Google) fixed the missing app icons in the dock.

Set the display scaling to 125% and then back to 100% to fix missing app icons in the search.

Do this by going to Settings > System > Screen > Scaling and set it to 125% and then 100% again.

ComputerUser121212
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Ken
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    Other solutions did not work for me. This did. Thanks! – PeteK68 Oct 16 '19 at 18:15
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    This did the trick. Thanks!!! – Husni Jun 25 '20 at 17:33
  • To someone who might have this same problem in the future, I will add that Google Backup and Sync causes this issue aswell. Removing it and changing display scaling solves the problem – ComputerUser121212 Oct 24 '20 at 17:53
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    I can confirm that Google File Stream was involved somehow. I don't know how it is screwing things up, but until I also removed it, none of the other solutions fixed things. – kapn Feb 03 '21 at 15:49
  • +1 Absolutely spot on. Only this worked for me, and the same applies for many other people apparently. This reply deserves more attention. It is an utter shame that in 2021 Microsoft still hasn't addressed this problem (even though probably triggered by third-party software), and we have to resort to this ludicrous workaround. – gd1 Feb 08 '21 at 12:26
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    This worked for me and I had to change the scale on each monitor. – Abdullah Seba May 01 '21 at 09:34
  • The 100% option was key for me; changing from 175 to 200 and back did not work. – Charlie Jan 21 '22 at 07:22
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I had the exact same problem and the following steps seemed to work for me:

  1. Search for "sysdm.cpl" via the Start Menu and open it up.
  2. Click on "Advanced".
  3. Under performance, click on "Settings".
  4. Make sure that "Save taskbar thumbnail previews" is checked.
  5. Reboot.

Hope it works!

Tom21487
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None of the above worked for me, what I found to be working was to delete the contents of the directory C:\Users\<my_user>\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.Search_*\LocalState\AppIconCache

Didi Kohen
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