Mysterious case of icon overlapping in Vista
I came across a mysterious case of the icon overlap problem in a Windows Vista computer. The screenshot below explains the problem. Upon closer observation, you could see the actual icon for shortcuts is being overlapped by a unknown icon. So I was sure that this is caused by an Icon Overlay override.
As this problem was seen only for shortcuts (.lnk and .url files), I suspected that the problem is with the Shell Icons key, where you can hide or change the arrow icon for shortcuts. (REF: How to remove or modify the Shortcut overlay in Windows Vista). I then asked for the export of this registry key:
As expected, the value named 29 did exist and was pointing to the following icon file:
After deleting the value named 29 and restarting Windows, the problem was resolved. Looks like the above referenced .ico file above does not play well with Windows Vista.
I came across this question in the AumHa forums run by Microsoft MVP James Eshelman, where I participate and also moderate posts occasionally. You can read the thread Desktop icons covered over where Microsoft MVP Bill Castner and I replied to.
Something I thought I’d share!
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