rikmayell

The problem that existed in the Windows 7 beta, where the icons for applications pinned to the Taskbar could become corrupted, has been carried through to the release candidate. Despite claims on some sites that the corruption occurs every three days, it appears to be random in nature. The only icons that appear to be unaffected are those associated with Office 2007.

Icon cache corruption problems have been present in Windows since 95 was released. In Vista 64 I regularly encountered the problem with icons in the system tray (notification area.) Caching icons to improve performance makes sense, but I wonder why this apparently simple technical issue has been the cause of so much trouble over the years.

The simplest fix in Windows 7 is to switch the size of the icons used for pinned applications, apply the change, switch the size back again, and reapply the change. This approach forces the icon cache to be regenerated twice, temporarily resolving the problem.

I am currently testing a fix I have developed which I hope will provide a permanent solution. Once I am satisfied that the fix is indeed permanent then I will provide further details.