Windows Live Mail icon in Taskbar strangeness

I have a new laptop that came with Windows Live Essentials pre-installed. In the Start->All Programs menu, all the individual Windows live applications are listed on their own at the top, plus there's a Windows Live folder near the bottom that has just Mesh and Writer. I wanted to organize things a bit and save some room on the All Programs menu by moving all the individual Windows Live icons at the top into the folder where I thought they belonged... all Windows Live apps in one place. Strangely, it prompted me for elevated permissions when I did this... I have no idea why moving that icon would require permissions that moving other icons around wouldn't... but I suspect this is part of the problem.

I thoght it would be just an easy little reorganization. Silly me.

The moment I did this, the Windows Live Main icon that was pinned to my taskbar changed to the default "no icon" icon... just looks like a document with little icons on it, what Windows usually displays when it can't find an icon.

Nothing I do will bring the icon back. I even moved the icon back from the Windows Live folder on the All Programs menu back to where it was.

Even more strangely, clicking this 'broken' icon on the task bar successfully launches Windows Live Mail, and it changes to the correct icon while running. When I close the app, poof, it's back to the broken icon.

Can anyone help me fix this? I've tried unpinning and re-pinning. When I look at the WLMail.exe app in the Program Files folder, it too shows the broken icon. I have no idea what happen, but I want to get the icon back. I can't get to a "Change Icon" option on the task bar, and "change icon" on the exe itself shows the correct icon, but when I select it, nothing happens... broken one is still displayed.

Ideas?

Side note: same thing happened to Windows Live Photo Gallery, but NOT to any of the other Windows Live apps. So confusing.

try

right clicking the icon,click properties, the target location is the path of EXE. find this through the C:

good luck

I'd also suggest that by changing the location of the original shortcut has probably "confused" the iconcache / thumbnails files. Delete the thumbnail caches through Disk Clean up utility (Right click your C:\ or main system drive) and also delete the iconcache.db (Hidden by Default) file in C:\Users\Your User Account\AppData (Hidden by Default)\Local. Then re-start your PC.

I am having this exact same problem. Just bought an Acer Aspire M3470 preloaded with Windows 7 64-bit and Windows Live Essentials. Like pmbAustin I wanted to clean up my start menu so I moved around some icons, created new folders etc. Since then, my WLMail icon is stuck as a "generic" icon. I tried creating new icons, disk cleanup and deleting the icon cache all to no avail. This issue is really driving me nuts. Please help!

*EDIT*
FOUND A WORKAROUND SOLUTION!

Download the complete Windows Live Essentials icon pack HERE , unzip, copy the desired .ico file to the Windows Live Mail directory at C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Live\Mail, right click your "broken" shortcut, click "change Icon..." navigate to your .ico file an voila!!

Your original icon was pointing to the shortcut in the "All programs " list. ie. It was a shortcut to a shortcut. Moving the item in the All programs destroyed the icon link. Ihave found the best way to reorganise your Start menu, is through the C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs. Here you can setup folders and drop and drag and drop to your hearts content. You can also, in your case delete duplicate shortcuts. To return the correct icon to the task bar, I would suggest you go directly to the Live folder.. C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Live\Mail Right click the executive (Winmail.exe) and select "Pin to Taskbar"

Thanks Dave, I did create new shortcuts directly from the executable file in the program files (x86) directory, but even the exe is showing the generic icon. I am satisfied with my workaround solution, although I am curious about the actual reason behind the problem.

I would hazard a guess that your C:\Windows\Installer folder has inadvertently been cleaned out. My Live Mail gets its icon from C:\Windows\Installer\{6412CECE-8172-4BE5-935B-6CECACD2CA87}\wlmail.exe

I'm thinking that your installer folders got deleted. You then moved your shortcuts which previously were still reading and getting info from the iconcache/thumbnails cache. After moving they were looking for a folder like my Live Mail but couldn't find one. Hence the use of a default icon.

Originally Posted by Scrub64

Thanks Dave, I did create new shortcuts directly from the executable file in the program files (x86) directory, but even the exe is showing the generic icon. I am satisfied with my workaround solution, although I am curious about the actual reason behind the problem.

Have you tried a reboot and opening Live Mail again? Otherwise, right click the taskbar icon, then right click, again the Live Mail entry you see, and select "properties". Then selct the change icon option and see what it shows.