Occasionally in Windows XP some program, shortcut and file icons may no longer be visible or they may not match the application that is associated with the file type.

This is most often caused by a corrupt icon cache.

You can rebuild the icon cache using a freeware utility from Microsoft called TweakUI.

You can download TweakUI from the Microsoft XP Powertoys page. This allows you to rebuild all Explorer icons and removes unused icons from memory.

- Click "Repair" in the tree structure
- Select "Rebuild Icons" in the right hand pane
- Click "Repair Now"
- Click "OK" when the process has finished