Fix for Explorer not showing file names in Vista

People have been asking me several times why there folder’s “pretty” icons keep reverting back to default icons. After reading a lot of queries I decide to put all the information at one place.
Let us an example to illustrate the problem. Below are 3 different icons, each having a different look. If you notice, the Music folder here is showing the generic folder icon instead of the slick one that it should be using.


 


There is a hidden file called desktop.ini that is responsible for setting icons to different folders. The problem is that a lot of applications seem to screw with this file and cause it to become corrupted or otherwise inoperative. What we will try to do is restore the file back to its original state.


Open the RUN Command window by pressing WIN Key + R. Type the command below to open up the desktop.ini file.


notepad %USERPROFILE%\music\desktop.ini
If you wanted to open the desktop.ini file in the pictures folder instead, substitute "pictures" for "music" in the command, like this:
notepad %USERPROFILE%\pictures\desktop.ini
The content of the file should look like this but unfortunately, it will not be similar to the one shown below.


[.ShellClassInfo]
LocalizedResourceName=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21790
InfoTip=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-12689
IconResource=%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll,-108
IconFile=%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll
IconIndex=-237
[LocalizedFileNames]
Sample Music.lnk=@%SystemRoot%\system32\shell32.dll,-21806


Select the entire contents of your file and replace it with the one shown above in Red Font. In order to see the effect of the changes, you will have to logout and login back.
  Hopefully by this point your icons should be back to looking good again…


 


For safety reasons, I recommend you create a backup copy of your original desktop.ini file in any folder and use it to show a custom icon.

 

If your Windows Explorer is not showing file names in some folders and you have tried everything but not getting result. Scan your computer with PCDOCPRO registry cleaner which will scan and fix junk files from your registry. And you no longer will experience such problem.