Adobe Reader icon not showing on Windows 10

[MeableTime]

I have just upgraded to Windows 10 Pro and I did a reset to start everything from fresh. I installed the latest version of Adobe Reader DC. After using it once and closing it, the icon no longer appears. I tried uninstalling and installing again, but no icon from the onset.

Anyone know how to fix this?

[AadeshSingh]

Hi meabletime,

Have you created desktop icon or pinned Adobe Acrobat Reader DC in the taskbar?

Are you able to open Adobe Acrobat Reader DC through Start menu -> All Program?

Regards,

Aadesh

[MeableTime]

Hi

I can open Adobe Reader from a desktop icon, taskbar, and through the start menu> all apps, but in all instances there is no 'actual' icon but what looks like a placeholder. Please see the image below, the 3 red arrows show what I am talking about.

Thanks for the quick response,

MeableTime

[MeableTime]

Bump

[michaelmsonne]

Same here... Bug i think!

[Nevervana]

Dear Aedesh the support guy:  Are you ever going to come back to the thread and help?  This bug was reported nearly a year ago and Adobe support hasn't bothered with it.   Literally everyone on Windows 10 has no proper icon for this app.   Seems like kind of a huge bug to just ignore?

[Graviton]

I've just clean installed Windows 10 and latest Windows Update.

I try to install Adobe Reader DC. I have the same problem. uninstall and reinstall many time but doesn't work. please fix this problem.

[rACTicK]

Same thing here. Adobe Reader DC icon broken on Windows 10 Pro.

The Desktop shortcut icon is showing perfectly but the icon is broken in the start menu.

Very annoying.....

[Guest]

Hello guys,

I have the same problem on Windows 10 with the new build of November and with the last Adobe Reader DC.

[jcamargo79 · Accepted solution]

Try this solution ... it worked for me

Icon Adobe Reader DC on taskbar is wrong - Super User

[Pixels_Col]

You legend. That solution worked for me. It had been driving me mad!

[saraths7804510]

wow... this worked.Thank you very much.

[mackpt1]

Here is how to fix Taskbar Icons Missing In Windows 10

1- First of all, click on an empty space in the taskbar and from the context menu that appears, click on the Properties option.

2- A new window named Taskbar and Start Menu Properties opens up. Under the tab Taskbar, find and click on the button named Customize as shown in the screenshot.

3- Click on the option entry Notifications and actions from the left pane of the System Settings window. Now in the right window pane, look for a link that says Select which icons appear on the taskbar and click on it.

4- Now a list of icons appears from which you can select from. If you look at the taskbar now, you will now be able to see a nearly empty taskbar which can be customized by following the next step.

5- As next, turn on the toggle buttons corresponding to the icons that you want to see in your taskbar. As you turn on the toggle button corresponding to an icon, it appears instantly in the taskbar.

Link removed by Moderator

[ajn97390812]

brilliant and well stated

[kristian-b]

Bump.

This is a very annoying bug and present for already one year now. Sure, with jcamargo79 solution the icon can be re-stored but with every Reader update the icon is destroyed again.

Is any update-proof solution available?

[eddyyang15]

The same happens with me

I've always been using Foxit Reader to view PDFs

But if no one's gonna fix it i'll just go back to Foxit

PLEASE CAN SOMEONE FIX THIS BUG

[AadeshSingh]

Hi eddyyang15Nevervana ,

I researched on this issue and found that re-building Icon Cache can fix this issue. Please give it a try.

Rebuild Icon cache in Windows 10

The Icon Cache or IconCache.db is a special database file that Windows utilizes to keep copies of each icon handy. When Windows needs to draw an icon, it uses the copy from the cache instead of retrieving the icon image from the original application file. This helps in making Windows draw the icons faster. Things were different in Windows XP and they are different in Windows 7 / 8. Things changed again Windows 8.1 onwards. In Windows 10, you need to do the following.

If you needed to rebuild the Icon cache in Windows 7 / 8, you needed to do the following: Open File Explorer > Folder Options > Views to show Hidden System Files. Next, go to C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local folder and delete the hidden IconCache.db file. Reboot. This action would purge and rebuild the icon cache.

But this is not enough in Windows 10 or Windows 8.1. You will have to navigate to the following folder:

C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer

Here you will see a lot of files like iconcache_32.db, iconcache_48.db, iconcache_96.db, iconcache_256.db, iconcache_1024.db, iconcache_1280.db, iconcache_1600.db, iconcache_1920.db, iconcache_2560.db, iconcache_exif.db, iconcache_idx.db, iconcache_sr.db, iconcache_wide.dd, iconcache_wide_alternate.db, etc.

Delete them all to purge and rebuild your icon cache in Windows 10. If you were to be able to delete some of theme, you would now be able to see a new folder created named IconcacheToDelete, which will disappear when you reboot your computer or restart Windows File Explorer.

If you find that you are unable to delete these files, do the following.

First, close all open programs. Next, open Task Manager, look for the process Windows Explorer, right-click on it and select End process. Next, from the File menu > select Run new task. Type cmd.exe, check the Create this task with administrative privileges box and press Enter.

This will open an elevated command prompt window.

Now type the following commands one after the other and hit Enter:

cd /d %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer attrib –h iconcache_*.db del iconcache_*.db start explorer

This will rebuild your icon cache in Windows 10.

Check if it fixes the issue.

Regards,

Aadesh

[ajjanthans43694929]

I followed all these steps. At the beginnig I thought the Problem is solved. But when I search for "Adobe Reader DC", the Problem with the broken Icon ist still present. Is ther any definitive solution?

[Yigithan_02]

I was so surprised when I found this, found it by myself because I rememebr it from a game.

You have to go to the mother folder where all the app data is located. (For me it's in C:// Program files/Adobe/ whatever program you have the issue with.) Then you have to find the actual app and create a shorcut to the desktop.

Good luck with everyone.

[betsys12218632]

some of this worked; but I am still having the issue with the start menu icon; it looks generic.  If i start the program from there it opens with the correct icon which is saved on the taskbar.  When doing the cache clearing (windows 10) I did not get the predicted delete folder; I got the "you cannot delete these files in use" message; also ending the windows explorer process basically turns off everything and I had to force restart with the laptop button.

The cmd line you gave didn't fly either, and I could not have accessed it after killing windows explorer. The copying of the .exe must have helped a little bit.

[nikosg45132923]

This one worked for me, Adobe reader showing wrong icon in taskbar[Windows 8, 10] - YouTube

[mike_in_la]

This worked for me, too. Just be sure you have a shortcut on the desktop before deleting the one in the programs folder.Thanks

nikosg45132923!

[Alluring_goal0D4C]

This one worked for me - the program in Start was pointing to Program Files, when it should have been pointing to Program Files (x86). Worked like a charm.

[gmpeet]

Strange, because the origional shortcut installed by Adobe Readre DC on my system does not mention either folders.

[lloydt7442666]

Any definitive solution?