Windows Icons randomly resized - STEAM ICONS ONLY FIX

[k_ci79]

Hi All, This was driving me nuts for the longest time. If this could help others, great!

The problem I was having was this: I have a folder for games and shortcuts of these games in that folder. Each time I opened the folder, the view of the icon shrank to 64x64 even though they are extra large icons. It happened randomly and various icons would shrink and increase each time. I noticed this was ONLY for my Steam Icons, although I have other game icons (which are fine).

To fix this I stumbled upon my other computer's registry settings and noticed 1 slight change:

The GlobalAssocChangedCounter was set to 3, while my other computer that worked had 38 (56)

Disclaimer: Changing settings here may mess up your computer, what I do is take a photo of my current settings on my cell phone so I know I can always change it back. I would advise to do this before proceeding, and I'm not held responsible.

Go to Cortana - type in Regedit, hit enter

Go HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE - SOFTWARE -> MICROSOFT -> WINDOWS -> CURRENT VERSION -> EXPLORER (click on top of this category, you will find GlobalAssocChangedCounter)

Double Click to edit - I changed the value to 38 (56 automatically appears) and voila, each time I open now, its correct size.

This may or may not work for you, hopefully it does! If it didn't work, you can change back to your old settings from the photo you took.

Otherwise, it may be a different issue altogether and google searching can help.

Take care

[MagicMaster667]

I don't know why this worked, but to did.
This has bothered me for actual years, and it's finally been solved now that I found this method.
Thank you for solving this issue! :D

[MagicMaster667]

Whelp, spoke too soon it seems.
I've added more game shortcuts since thinking it was solved, so maybe that's what messed it up again.

This fix was fun while it lasted though.

[Huggybaby]

I have the same problem. My icons keep shrinking to some small size, no matter how often I reset them. And even resetting them doesn't work all the time.

By resetting I mean go to the icon properties and change icon by navigating to C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\ and then the game folder and then selecting the game's .exe. It's kind of a pain to have to keep doing that for a dozen games.

I need to keep my mom's game folder looking tidy and this makes her game folder look really bad. It's strange that this only seems to happen with Steam icons.

[Spinning Bird Kick]

Some parent company is trying to diminish streams reputation by throwing us through this silly scheme. Intentionally counter intuitive it seems.

[klyde]

Any fixes in 2022?

[GODzilla]

Stumpled over this thread, also had this problem. The fix in the start post cannot be it. I googled what this registry setting actually means and it's just a counter, not a setting:

https://answers.microsoft.com/de-de/windows/forum/all/registry-schl%C3%BCssel/016d04e7-035d-47a8-bac9-768fbcebad3d

I believe that this will probably be fixed with Windows 13. xD But all jokes aside, I just "deal" with it the following way:

You go to properties, change symbol and then you reasign the ico (if it's an icon you downloaded or created) or via the exe of the game, but you have to switch around either the name, by renaming the ico or choose another exe, so either the game has another (like a launcher) or you just copy & paste the exe, create a double.

Example: My desktop icon for "Battletech" has shrunk. I have my own icon for that, so I browse to that ico file. Formerly it was named "Battletech.ico". I rename it to "Battle Tech.ico" and assign it as picture. It will be large again.

...for a while.

Rince and repeat. ^^

[Duke_Bubblez]

Well at least im not alone in this! Lmao. Its doing my nut in tho tbh....

[DEVILDICE]

This has bothered me for literal years and it's still an issue. Sigh...

[Duke_Bubblez]

Originally posted by DEMONDICE:

This has bothered me for literal years and it's still an issue. Sigh...

Lol, my memory is literally ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, so i dunno about years ago on old steam accounts..... but on this "newest" one, it seems to be a permanent feature! Rofl

[Vixark]

Hello, I found a fix that I think that works. The trick is converting the shortcuts from .URL type icons to normal shortcuts (.LNK extension).

You could do it manually one at at time using the create shortcut wizard by Windows, and using something like this in as the target "explorer.exe steam://rungameid/520720" You can take the rungameid/#### from the original url shortcut opening it with notepad.

That creates a normal shortcut that you can change its icon and it won't change size randomly as the URL icons do.

It's doable for a couple of games, but if you have too many it becomes a huge chore, so I made a small utility that automatically converts URL shortcuts to normal shortcuts, check it here https://github.com/vixark/Url-Shortcut-to-Lnk-Converter . Probably someone else could create a batch for doing the same thing.

[GODzilla]

Apart from getting an error when I'm trying to use it inside a folder that has an icon as part of the folder name, this works ike a charm. I just copied all the shortcuts somewhere else, converted them, copied them back after erasing the old ones.

Cheers mate, well done.

PS: Of course I have to see if they really don't show smaller icons at random like the url style shortcuts, but at least someone is tackling the problem, unlike Microsoft. :D Will report back later.

/edit: It defintely works. I mean...this has been plaguing me for at least 6 or 7 years! Unbelievable. ^^

[Vixark]

I'm happy to hear that it worked out for you!

This was also a problem I had for 3 years, and everytime I saw my games folder I sighed at the small icons and thought to myself -I need to fix this- . Until this week my patience reached its limit :)

Remember to run it again everytime you add a new Url shortcut. The app ignores the existent .lnk icons.

[GODzilla]

Indeed. Just look at these:

https://i.imgur.com/H253eOL.png

Someone put time and effort into creating these beautiful icons and then Windows comes and snatches them away? But not anymore! ^^

[Vixark]

Nice!

Here is mine looking good: https://imgur.com/a/3iLlXo2

[carlosgk2010]

Originally posted by Vixark:

Hello, I found a fix that I think that works. The trick is converting the shortcuts from .URL type icons to normal shortcuts (.LNK extension).

You could do it manually one at at time using the create shortcut wizard by Windows, and using something like this in as the target "explorer.exe steam://rungameid/520720" You can take the rungameid/#### from the original url shortcut opening it with notepad.

That creates a normal shortcut that you can change its icon and it won't change size randomly as the URL icons do.

It's doable for a couple of games, but if you have too many it becomes a huge chore, so I made a small utility that automatically converts URL shortcuts to normal shortcuts, check it here https://github.com/vixark/Url-Shortcut-to-Lnk-Converter . Probably someone else could create a batch for doing the same thing.

Thank you, having to resize everything at random was annoying. I'll give you a reward once I get points.