How To Fix Missing Tile Icons On The Start Menu On Windows 10
The tiles on the Start menu are what make it useable. If you had a list of apps, the Start menu would basically just be a glorified apps list taking up more space than it should. For some users though, the tile icons on the Start menu seem to have disappeared. The tiles are still pinned where they were originally positioned and if you hover the cursor over them, you will be able to read the name of the app tile. The icon does not appear. Here are a few ways to fix missing tile icons on the Start Menu on Windows 10.
Resize Tile
Right-click a tile that has a missing icon and from the context menu, go to resize. Change the size of the icon to anything that isn’t currently selected. This ought to get the tile to appear again. Restart your system to see if the fix works after a reboot.
App Shortcut In Start Menu Folder
For the apps that are missing tile icons, locate their EXE files, and create a shortcut for them on your desktop. Next, go to the following location;
C:\Users[UserName]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs
Copy and paste the shortcut to the above location. Do this for all apps that do not have a tile icon. If a shortcut is already present in the Start Menu folder, you should replace it with the new one. If there is no shortcut, go ahead and paste it.
Startup Repair Tool
Download the Microsoft Startup Repair tool, and run it to see if it can fix the problem. It may tell you that your tile database is corrupted and unfortunately, there is not easy way to rebuild it. Even Microsoft suggests creating a new user to fix the problem though, before you do, try the other fixes below.
PowerShell Script
Open Notepad and paste the following in it. Save it with the BAT extension, and then run the file with administrative rights. Your taskbar will disappear for a while but don’t worry. That’s just Explorer.exe restarting. Once the taskbar returns, reboot your system and check if the tile icons are back.
@echo offtaskkill /f /im explorer.exe taskkill /f /im shellexperiencehost.exe timeout /t 3 /NOBREAK > nul del %localappdata%\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ShellExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy\TempState\* /q timeout /t 2 /NOBREAK > nul start explorer @echo on
Command Prompt
Open Command Prompt with administrative rights. It’s a good idea to close everything else that you have open at this point. The commands that you’re about to execute will take some time and the Explorer.exe process will be terminated making it difficult to switch between apps.
Run the following commands, one by one.
DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Scanhealth
Next run;
DISM.exe /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
Next run;
sfc /scannow
This ought to repair system files that might have been corrupted. It will take time to complete. Once it’s done, reboot your system. If the sfc/scannow tool tells you it was unable to repair files, you might have a bigger problem on your hands. Your only alternative is to either reset your PC, or create a new user and move your files to it.
Thanks for a great article. The solution you have listed in the “PowerShell Script” worked for me, and best of all didn’t require me to restart my computer.
One correction for the script in that section: the first line needs to be split into two separate lines:
Original line:
@echo offtaskkill /f /im explorer.exe
Corrected lines:
@echo off
taskkill /f /im explorer.exe
Also, for me the script stopped after the first timeout, so I manually killed the command prompt and restarted it, pasting in the script lines without the timeouts:
del %localappdata%\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.ShellExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy\TempState\*
This above line prompts you if you want to do the deltion, so just enter “y”, without the quotes.
Then enter the final line to restart the Windows Explorer:
start explorer
Thanks again for a great article.
I had that happen in a Windows program that I pinned to the start menu. Opening the file location for the shortcut, changing the icon to something else then back again fixed it.