Win11 23H2 22631.3007, 14 cores, 32GB memory, 1TB SSD.

I don't have anything pinned to my taskbar.

I run multiple desktops (from task view, not as virtual machines).

Most of the time I have a couple of dozen windows open, spread over two
or three desktops on the primary monitor, ms teams runs on a "companion"
monitor all to itself.

Most days I end up with a couple of apps running which have "lost" their
icons, the short or long underbar is displayed in the taskbar.

I haven't noticed any pattern to which apps this happens to, from task
manager doing a restart on windows explorer always brings the missing
icons back.

Sysinternals autoruns doesn't show anything that looks immediately
suspicious.

Any clues?

On Wed, 7 Feb 2024 10:48:47 +0000, Andy Burns wrote:
> Most days I end up with a couple of apps running which have "lost" their
> icons, the short or long underbar is displayed in the taskbar.
>
> I haven't noticed any pattern to which apps this happens to, from task
> manager doing a restart on windows explorer always brings the missing
> icons back.
>
> Sysinternals autoruns doesn't show anything that looks immediately
> suspicious.
>
> Any clues?

File Explorer/Windows Explorer/Explorer has always been wonky in its
handling of the taskbar. I don't know why what you describe is
happening, but I can tell you how to fix it. (I'm on my Win 10
machine right now, so names may be slightly different in Win 11, but
I have used this process before under Win 11 to force the taskbar to
redraw.)

1. Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc or use any other method to open Task Manager.

2. Right-click on the Windows Explorer or File Explorer line(*) in
Task Manager, and select Restart.

(*)If you have an open Explorer window, File Explorer or Window
Explorer will appear under Apps; otherwise it will appear under
Windows Processes.

--
Stan Brown, Tehachapi, California, USA https://BrownMath.com/
Shikata ga nai...

Stan Brown <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote:

> Andy Burns wrote:
>
>> Most days I end up with a couple of apps running which have "lost"
>> their icons, the short or long underbar is displayed in the taskbar.
>>
>> I haven't noticed any pattern to which apps this happens to, from
>> task manager doing a restart on windows explorer always brings the
>> missing icons back.
>
> File Explorer/Windows Explorer/Explorer has always been wonky in its
> handling of the taskbar. I don't know why what you describe is
> happening, but I can tell you how to fix it. (I'm on my Win 10
> machine right now, so names may be slightly different in Win 11, but
> I have used this process before under Win 11 to force the taskbar to
> redraw.)
>
> 1. Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc or use any other method to open Task Manager.
>
> 2. Right-click on the Windows Explorer or File Explorer line(*) in
> Task Manager, and select Restart.
>
> (*)If you have an open Explorer window, File Explorer or Window
> Explorer will appear under Apps; otherwise it will appear under
> Windows Processes.

Another way is to use a shortcut that points to a .bat file that has:

@echo off
taskkill.exe /im explorer.exe /f
start explorer.exe
exit

When you double-click the shortcut, the desktop will disappear and
reappear.

Another way is to:
- Load Task Manager, and leave it open during the following steps.
- Right-click on explorer.exe to kill it.
- Use Task Manager's File -> Run new task menu to run explorer.exe.

explorer.exe is both the file manager and desktop GUI manager, so you
"reset" or "restart" it by killing and reloading it. A problem with
restarting Explorer is that you may lose icons in the systray. Programs
will add their systray icon when they start, but don't recheck it is
still there. Restarting Explorer doesn't trigger the program to re-add
its systray icon. If systray icons disappear, logoff and login.

On 2/7/2024 5:48 AM, Andy Burns wrote:
> Win11 23H2 22631.3007, 14 cores, 32GB memory, 1TB SSD.
>
> I don't have anything pinned to my taskbar.
>
> I run multiple desktops (from task view, not as virtual machines).
>
> Most of the time I have a couple of dozen windows open, spread over two or three desktops on the primary monitor, ms teams runs on a "companion" monitor all to itself.
>
> Most days I end up with a couple of apps running which have "lost" their icons, the short or long underbar is displayed in the taskbar.
>
> I haven't noticed any pattern to which apps this happens to, from task manager doing a restart on windows explorer always brings the missing icons back.
>
> Sysinternals autoruns doesn't show anything that looks immediately suspicious.
>
> Any clues?
>

Perhaps there is an iconcache corrupted somewhere.

There is a limit to how many programs you can have open.
Some of the manifest constants are compiled into some executable.
Someone complained in Win10 early days, that "500 wasn't enough".

And it does not matter how much RAM you have, if a stack or heap
allocation is incorrect for the job. Also, it seems Windows Defender
does not necessarily like it, if you make giant stack or heap
allocations in your private programs :-)

If programs malloc() for their resources, I think a lot more memory
is available. There may still be limits on non-paged and paged Pool
memory. Back in WinXP days, the allocation was tiny, and seemed to
garbage-collect quite frequently. A later change (W7?) "allowed Pool to extend
to almost the entire memory". It may have been modified since then.

Paul

On Wed, 7 Feb 2024 21:28:57 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:
> Stan Brown <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>
> > Andy Burns wrote:
> >
> >> Most days I end up with a couple of apps running which have "lost"
> >> their icons, the short or long underbar is displayed in the taskbar.
> >>
> >> I haven't noticed any pattern to which apps this happens to, from
> >> task manager doing a restart on windows explorer always brings the
> >> missing icons back.
> >
> > File Explorer/Windows Explorer/Explorer has always been wonky in its
> > handling of the taskbar. I don't know why what you describe is
> > happening, but I can tell you how to fix it. (I'm on my Win 10
> > machine right now, so names may be slightly different in Win 11, but
> > I have used this process before under Win 11 to force the taskbar to
> > redraw.)
> >
> > 1. Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc or use any other method to open Task Manager.
> >
> > 2. Right-click on the Windows Explorer or File Explorer line(*) in
> > Task Manager, and select Restart.
> >
> > (*)If you have an open Explorer window, File Explorer or Window
> > Explorer will appear under Apps; otherwise it will appear under
> > Windows Processes.
>
> Another way is to use a shortcut that points to a .bat file that has:
>
> @echo off
> taskkill.exe /im explorer.exe /f
> start explorer.exe
> exit
>
> When you double-click the shortcut, the desktop will disappear and
> reappear.
>
> Another way is to:
> - Load Task Manager, and leave it open during the following steps.
> - Right-click on explorer.exe to kill it.
> - Use Task Manager's File -> Run new task menu to run explorer.exe.
I don't deny that those other ways will work, but each one takes
longer than what I suggested. I can't see that either of them has any
advantages to compensate for the extra work. Am I missing something?

--
Stan Brown, Tehachapi, California, USA https://BrownMath.com/
Shikata ga nai...

Stan Brown <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote:

> On Wed, 7 Feb 2024 21:28:57 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:
>> Stan Brown <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote:
>>
>>> Andy Burns wrote:
>>>
>>>> Most days I end up with a couple of apps running which have "lost"
>>>> their icons, the short or long underbar is displayed in the taskbar.
>>>>
>>>> I haven't noticed any pattern to which apps this happens to, from
>>>> task manager doing a restart on windows explorer always brings the
>>>> missing icons back.
>>>
>>> File Explorer/Windows Explorer/Explorer has always been wonky in its
>>> handling of the taskbar. I don't know why what you describe is
>>> happening, but I can tell you how to fix it. (I'm on my Win 10
>>> machine right now, so names may be slightly different in Win 11, but
>>> I have used this process before under Win 11 to force the taskbar to
>>> redraw.)
>>>
>>> 1. Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc or use any other method to open Task Manager.
>>>
>>> 2. Right-click on the Windows Explorer or File Explorer line(*) in
>>> Task Manager, and select Restart.
>>>
>>> (*)If you have an open Explorer window, File Explorer or Window
>>> Explorer will appear under Apps; otherwise it will appear under
>>> Windows Processes.
>>
>> Another way is to use a shortcut that points to a .bat file that has:
>>
>> @echo off
>> taskkill.exe /im explorer.exe /f
>> start explorer.exe
>> exit
>>
>> When you double-click the shortcut, the desktop will disappear and
>> reappear.
>>
>> Another way is to:
>> - Load Task Manager, and leave it open during the following steps.
>> - Right-click on explorer.exe to kill it.
>> - Use Task Manager's File -> Run new task menu to run explorer.exe.
>
> I don't deny that those other ways will work, but each one takes
> longer than what I suggested. I can't see that either of them has any
> advantages to compensate for the extra work. Am I missing something?

Once the shortcut is created, just double-click on it. No having to
open Task Manager (via several methods) to right-click on Explorer to
select to restart it. Setting up the shortcut, and creating the .bat
file, do take longer the first time. Since there are several artifacts
where restarting explorer.exe resolves a problem, thereafter just
double-clicking the shortcut performs the resolution.

The 2nd method takes about as much effort as yours, but perhaps having
to type "explorer.exe" makes it more work.

VanguardLH wrote:

> Once the shortcut is created, just double-click on it. No having to
> open Task Manager (via several methods) to right-click on Explorer to
> select to restart it. Setting up the shortcut, and creating the .bat
> file, do take longer the first time. Since there are several artifacts
> where restarting explorer.exe resolves a problem, thereafter just
> double-clicking the shortcut performs the resolution.

Yeah, I was already using task manager to restart explorer as I
mentioned in my O/P, setting up a shortcut to automate it feels like
accepting defeat, it'd be nice to prevent it happening in the first
place ... I do remember windows resource limits causing issues with
desktop (rather than taskbar) icons, but that was a loooong time ago.

On Thu, 8 Feb 2024 13:18:06 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:
> Stan Brown <the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> > I don't deny that those other ways will work, but each one takes
> > longer than what I suggested. I can't see that either of them has any
> > advantages to compensate for the extra work. Am I missing something?
>
> Once the shortcut is created, just double-click on it. No having to
> open Task Manager (via several methods) to right-click on Explorer to
> select to restart it.

I think your point is well taken. For a one-off basis, my method is
shorter. But, just as you say, for repeated use this will be faster.
And repeated use is much more likely than one-off.

--
Stan Brown, Tehachapi, California, USA https://BrownMath.com/
Shikata ga nai...