Windows 11

[Clanger]

I prefer the simplicity of w7 TM for general use but have ProExp to hand, its better than w7TM at shutting down running hung processes.
Grab the latest Sysinternals Suite, it has all their utilities, you never know when you'll need them.

Autoruns is well worth having

 

[Necrosaro]

I prefer the simplicity of w7 TM for general use but have ProExp to hand, its better than w7TM at shutting down running hung processes.
Grab the latest Sysinternals Suite, it has all their utilities, you never know when you'll need them.

Autoruns is well worth having

Got autoruns...it is worth it such a helpful program for us geeky guys and gals

 

[crypticus]

Guys, what is the best way to rebuild icon cache to fix blank icons?

reiconcache from sordum tools is not working for my case.

 

[Clanger]

crypticus WAT can clear icon cache and set icon cache size.
Hexcuse the layout, i straight up copied/pasted from my reg file. 51.2MB is an arbitrary size i settled on.
Maybe ntlite clears icon cache, import the reg straight into Registry.
nuhi can use this if he wants, if it isnt there already.

Blurb from Winaero

Spoiler

REM ;ICON-CACHE-SIZE-FROM WINAERO-TWEAKER
REM ;TO SHOW ICONS FASTER, WINDOWS CACHES THEM INTO A FILE. THIS SPECIAL FILE
REM ;CONTAINS ICONS FOR MANY APPS AND FILE TYPES, SO FILE EXPLORER DOESN'T NEED
REM ;TO EXTRACT THE ICONS FOR KNOWN FILE EXTENSIONS AND APPS. THE ICON CACHE FILE
REM ;SIZE IS JUST 500KB BY DEFAULT. DUE TO THIS RESTRICTION, FOLDERS WITH MANY
REM ;FILES MAY OPEN SLOWLY. INCREASING THE ICON CACHE SIZE MAY RESOLVE THE ISSUE
REM ;AND FIX SLOW LOADING ICONS IN THE FILE EXPLORER APP.
REM ;CACHE SIZE INCREASED TO 51.2MB

See below for reg file.

 

[Clanger]

reiconcache from sordum tools is not working for my case.

Run it Elevated. Or run Everything search Elevated from POwer Run and delete the files from there, i havnt tried that with those files but it works with other system files.

 

[Necrosaro]

Guys, what is the best way to rebuild icon cache to fix blank icons?

reiconcache from sordum tools is not working for my case.

This is one of my errrr moments when I see a blank shortcut icon. Isn't distributed link tracking client service suppose to keep shortcuts from getting bonked?

 

[Clanger]

This is one of my errrr moments when I see a blank shortcut icon. Isn't distributed link tracking client service suppose to keep shortcuts from getting bonked?

Its not the shortcut getting bonked, its the shortcuts icon that is getting bonked because default icon cache size is wayyyyy too low and it keeps having to overwrite itself.



Do what i posted above and all should be good. Add to Registry or Post Install.

 

[Clanger]

Oops, me bad

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

;Increase Icon Cache Size To 51.2MB
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer]
"Max Cached Icons"="51200"

 

[Necrosaro]

Oops, me bad

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

;Increase Icon Cache Size To 51.2MB
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer]
"Max Cached Icons"="51200"

That works honky dory

 

[Clanger]

That works honky dory

 

[Hellbovine]

Has anyone tried to figure out if you can just prevent Windows from building these files to begin with? I did some Googling, and there's all sorts of ways to turn off thumbnails and clear the iconcache.db and the other related files, but I haven't seen a way to completely disable this function entirely.

I'm not saying it's a good tweak for everyone, but in my experience all forms of caching and such have only caused me problems over the years (prefetch/superfetch/indexer/thumbnails/fast startup/etcetera) and I'd rather just have the OS stop doing it entirely, wherever I can.

 

[Clanger]

Troll seven/eight/ten/eleven(as per the required os) forums, looks like thumbnail and icon caching may vary per OS.

Follow the results of this search.

 

[Clanger]

AeonX has a tweak to clear event logs(i think ), certain its him, ive deffo see it somewhere.

 

[garlin]

Microsoft is adding support for iCloud Photos in Windows 11's Photos app; Apple TV and Apple Music apps are coming to PCs next year

Hasn't arrived to download (Photos 2022.31100.9001.0).

 

[Clanger]

Rant

Spoiler

There is no effing way i am ever uploading ANY personal stuff to the cloud no matter who owns it. If i want backups i use dvd's/blu ray discs

 

[Hellbovine]

I fell down a rabbit hole researching and testing Icon and Thumbnail cache. I created a thread (link) for anyone interested.

 

[Clanger]

you can actually stop iconcache.db from being created (no more corruption issues!), just change Clanger's registry key to 0. The funny thing is I've never seen that suggested anywhere before

I havnt seen that mentioned either. Ive reset my cache to 0MB, cleared icon cache files, restarted and created new shortcuts, all is good so far.

Edit - 1 day later, still no problems.

 

[garlin]

WTF.​

How a Microsoft blunder opened millions of PCs to potent malware attacks

For almost two years, Microsoft officials botched a key Windows defense, an unexplained lapse that left customers open to a malware infection technique that has been especially effective in recent months.

Microsoft officials have steadfastly asserted that Windows Update will automatically add new software drivers to a blocklist designed to thwart a well-known trick in the malware infection playbook. The malware technique—known as BYOVD, short for "bring your own vulnerable driver"—makes it easy for an attacker with administrative control to bypass Windows kernel protections. Rather than writing an exploit from scratch, the attacker simply installs any one of dozens of third-party drivers with known vulnerabilities. Then the attacker exploits those vulnerabilities to gain instant access to some of the most fortified regions of Windows.

It turns out, however, that Windows was not properly downloading and applying updates to the driver blocklist, leaving users vulnerable to new BYOVD attacks.

 

[Hellbovine]

Funny, that the irony here is by disabling "important" things in the OS like WU, you end up being more secure

 

[garlin]

Read again, for 3 years HVCI was never blocking any known bad drivers. Sorry, download the "mitigation" tool which installs the missing blocklist we never pushed out to WU. This what happens when you fire QA, and make devs self-test.