PDF Desktop Icon Black

Report · Apr 22, 2019

WIN 10 64 Pro Adobe Acrobat Pro DC .20100

Unfortunately, I did receive the most recent windows update.

Problem: The PDF icons on my desktop turn black.

Acrobat is set to shop images in the icons and view as large icons.

When logging in to windows, icons first appear as generic red/white icons, then become images.

At the end of windows login, all Desktop PDF icons snap to black.

Icons show images in all other folders except desktop, as well, images show in Dropbox.

Is there a way to fix this? If it is the update, can it be redacted?

Many thanks

Report · Feb 04, 2021

The only solution for this problem for me was to install the fix from mr. Davidson.

Fixes for 64-bit Adobe Reader preview handler and thumbnails

I am using this fix for more than a decade now, because nor Adobe Reader and not to speak of Adobe Acrobat could normally show the pdf thumbnails in Windows after a time. It gets black or white square or whatever that is on the actual "dining menu".

And here I am on Windows 10 Home version 20H2, build 19042.746 and Adobe Acrobat DC 2020.013.20074.
Nothing changed since at least Windows Vista.

Without the fix posted above, you will face this problem again and again with pdf thumbnail/preview not displaying correctly in medium/and or small icon sizes.

Simply absurd.

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Report · Apr 28, 2021

Just adding my 2 cents... despite the fix above ("Fixes for 64-bit Adobe Reader preview handler and thumbnails") being about 10 years old, it works like a charm.

Windows 10 Pro x64 here with no problems until I tried out the 64-bit version of Adobe Acrobat DC. Once the 64-bit version was installed, my pdf icons turned into black boxes. The only way to prevent the black boxes (after trying numerous fixes) was to set Windows to display icons and never previews.

Finally, after messing with this problem for 3 days, I followed the advice on the "Fixes for 64-bit..." and the problem was IMMEDIATELY fixed. Icons are back to normal, "preview" icons work as expected, screen refreshes are uneventful, and this all happens regardless of icon size, screen resolution and any of the rest.

I should have done what was on the "Fixes..." page days ago, but I thought there's no way that 10 years could have passed without someone fixing the original problem. So never say never. The old fix still works. It corrects one incorrect CLSID in the Windows registry. That's it. And it works.

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Report · Apr 28, 2021

Thank you tsmith for confirming that the solution posted by GRAFOP works.

Report · Nov 01, 2021

hi

heres the fix for black icons.

1. type in search file explorer options

2. clcik the view tab

3. top entry (on my pc anyway) under files and folders tick "Always show

icons, never thumbnails"

done

Report · Jan 25, 2022

Has anyone else noticed that the black icons only appear on the Windows Main Display? My 2nd display shows thumbnails normally, no matter what I do. (FYI running Windows 11 Home, latest Acrobat Pro ver, and yes, running OneDrive-essential). I've tried all the fixes reported over the last few days and weeks, and the only one that finally stops the issue is to disable thumbnails. Question for Adobe - what about the user's Desktop folder is different than any other Windows folder?

Report · Aug 17, 2022

I've found that the previewer in Windows explorer does not work when using Adobe 64-bit PDF products. My solution was to keep the 64-bit product set as the default PDF program and install the free Adobe 32-bit reader and set it for the PDF previewer.