Icons show up late in games folder

I am using Windows 10 , build 1903

When I Open my game folder, the icons show up late and I must wait for about 15s to see all the games' icons. At first I see them as a white paper icon (the same icon for all of them) and then slowly the icons of each game show up. I don't have any other folder like this. This folder is on my desktop and in my SSD, and my games folder has 41 icons.

1 Answer

The purpose of the icon cache is to display icons more quickly, so that you don't have to load them every time you try to access the file. Rebuild the icon cache (in Windows 10) or the thumbnail cache (in Windows 7 and 8) by finding and deleting the cache file so that Windows rebuilds it on the next restart.

You are using Windows 10, build 1903. To clear the icons cache in Windows 10, follow these instructions:

1. Open Windows Explorer.
2. From the View tab, select Hidden items.
3. Select Show selected items.
4. Go to C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer, where C:\ is the drive where you installed Windows and User is the username of your account profile.
5. Select all files that begin with iconcache.
6. Right­-click on these files.
7. Click Delete. To delete these files faster, press the Shift + Delete keys.

If that doesn’t work, follow these steps for increasing the icon cache size in Windows 7, 8, and 10.

1. Click the Windows Start menu and type regedit.

2. Right-click on Run command below regedit and select Run as administrator.

3. Backup your registry before preceding by selecting File -> Export and then name the backup file and click the Save button to save it.

4. In the left pane unfold HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE -> SOFTWARE -> Microsoft -> Windows -> CurrentVersion -> Explorer.

5. Select Explorer by clicking it. Right-click on Explorer and select New -> String Value.

6. Rename this new string value Max Cached Icons.

7. Double-click on Max Cached Icons after renaming it. In the Value data text entry field type 4096. This sets the Max Cached Icons size to 4MB, but you can type a larger or smaller number.

8. Click the OK button to save the changed setting for max cached icons size which will also close the registry editor.

9. Restart Windows to enable the change in the registry max cached icons size setting.