Where Did My Icons Go?

Anne asks, "I rebooted my computer after a recent update and now all my .jpg images have that white icon with the mini window inside instead of the icon that looks like a sunset. What happened? How can I fix this?"

What happened is .jpg files on your system lost the association with your default image viewer. Sometimes when you install something new on your system or uninstall something from your system, file associations get messed up and Windows no longer stores the preference for which app you want to use to open a particular file type. In this case, Windows forgot which app was your preferred picture viewer. Typically, if you never change the Windows default, this is the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. Depending on what other image viewing and editing applications you install, this may change to something like Irfanview, Photoshop Elements, Paint Shop Pro or one of the dozens of image manipulation tools. This is easily fixed by correcting the file association for the .jpg file type, which restores the default application for opening .jpg files and changes the .jpg icon to match the icon for your default app.

To repair the file association for your .jpg files, you need to correct the properties. Right-click a JPEG file with a blank icon and choose properties from the menu. On the General tab, click the change button next it Opens With. If you have a preferred image editing app select that. For purposes of this demonstration I'm selecting Windows Picture and Fax Viewer.

When you click OK you should see all JPEG files on your system with an icon that looks something like what's pictured at the left here. When you correct file associations for one file, Windows sets the default for all files of that type on your system.