Difficulty changing desktop shortcut icon

User Help for Mozilla Firefox
Post Reply
rmlazzari
Posts: 7
Joined: April 8th, 2014, 5:14 am

Difficulty changing desktop shortcut icon

Post by rmlazzari »

Hello, I had to reinstall Firefox. Everything went fine except that now I can no longer change the icon of the shortcuts to any website on the desktop. For example, to create an icon on the desktop to have direct access to the bank, being on the bank's website I would drag the green padlock from the address bar to the desktop and then change the icon of that shortcut by assigning it the bank's logo, a file image that I have saved. I can still create shortcuts the same way I did before, but now, when I right click on the icon and choose "Properties", I no longer have the "Change icon" option. In addition, the created icon now shows the "URL" extension.

I do not want to enable the "Hide extensions for known file types" option in Windows. Actually this option is as it always was: disabled. Just that before this reinstallation, the shortcuts to Firefox open on a particular website did not show this extension.

The FF version I've just install is 66.0.5(32-bits)

The Windows version I use is 7 in Brazilian Portuguese. I am sending two images from the context menu relative to the right click on these icon, one of them has "Change icon" and in the other it does not have.

Can you help me with this?

Image - https://ibb.co/HND1jMT
Image - https://ibb.co/0jZwcrq
User avatar
therube
Posts: 21698
Joined: March 10th, 2004, 9:59 pm
Location: Maryland USA

Re: Difficulty changing desktop shortcut icon

Post by therube »

Oh that's neat.
Seems the icon is stored in your Profile folder, within a /shortcutCache/ subdirectory (& referenced in the .url desktop link).

That directory, & any icon files (.ico) therein would not exist, by default, or after your "reinstall".

If you have a backup of your Profile - prior to the reinstall, copy the .ico files from the /shortcutCache/*.ico into the new.
Otherwise revisit the pages in question & drag the page (again) to your desktop, which should then cause that pages "icon" to repopulate the /shortcutCache/ directory.
Fire 750, bring back 250.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.19) Gecko/20110420 SeaMonkey/2.0.14 Pinball CopyURL+ FetchTextURL FlashGot NoScript
rmlazzari
Posts: 7
Joined: April 8th, 2014, 5:14 am

Re: Difficulty changing desktop shortcut icon

Post by rmlazzari »

Thank you for the answer, therube.

If you allow me, let me explain some details could help you to help me. In the computer there are two users:

Leda
Administrador

The backup I have for the user doesn't have the folder /ShortcutCache/.
It was created by an utility (Cobian Backup) in drive D: (That's why I call this folder "Cbackup")

Under the "D:\CBackup\Leda\Firefox\74vh7uud.default-1536414364157" there are other directories:

browser-extension-data
crashes
datareporting
extensions
features
gmp-gmpopenh264
gmp-widevinecdm
storage
weave

But I still have a backup for the needed icons. These icons I did myself throu getting this logos in the Internet and converting from image to icons.
It's "D:\backup\Leda\Novos Ícones" and they have .ICO as extension.

The curious is that under my user "Administrator", the desktop of Leda appears in the right way, as you can see in the attached image...


But the question remains: why, before reinstall FF and using the Leda logon, when I drag the green padlock to desktop it apeears without extension and i could change the icon and now, after reinstall, when i do the same operation, it appears with the extension (.URL) and i can't change the associated icon.

I have a supection: something happened after the reinstallation with the association that FF does throu OS Windows. I've already search these associations using the OS's resources but found nothing wierd.

What you think about recreate associations between file types and programs from within Firefox? Do this browser have an option for that? How can I access these options? I guess Firefox is now allowing OS to menage the way this shorcuts appear, does it make any sense? ( I used to be IT analyst a long, long time ago and now I'm just a retired jurassic "guesser".)



https://ibb.co/YRWTKBg - seen under the user Administrador
https://ibb.co/zXzfv0Z - seen uder the user Leda


(P.S.: Please excuse if I got misuderstood. I'm translating a text written in Portuguese into English automatically.)
rmlazzari
Posts: 7
Joined: April 8th, 2014, 5:14 am

Re: Difficulty changing desktop shortcut icon

Post by rmlazzari »

I've found a trick way:

1 - create a shortcut for the .url file in the desktop
2 - set the .url file as hidden
3 - now you can rename the created shortcut and can change it's icon too.

This solution could cause problems for those who have a lot of shotcuts in the desktop.
User avatar
therube
Posts: 21698
Joined: March 10th, 2004, 9:59 pm
Location: Maryland USA

Re: Difficulty changing desktop shortcut icon

Post by therube »

Maybe it was a permissions issue?
Admin account vs. a (regular) user account?

---

A .url file is simply a text file.
In there, is, may be, a pointer to the "icon file".

Code: Select all

[{000214A0-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}]
Prop3=19,11
[InternetShortcut]
URL=https://ieonline.microsoft.com/#ieslice
IDList=
   IconFile=https://ieonline.microsoft.com/favicon.ico
IconIndex=1
[MonitoredItem]
FeedUrl=https://ieonline.microsoft.com/#ieslice
PreviewSize=320x240
IsLivePreview=true

Code: Select all

[InternetShortcut]
URL=http://mplayerwin.sourceforge.net/
IDList=
HotKey=0
   IconFile=C:\Mozilla\Profiles\SyncMaster\shortcutCache\uLdch7TQruQ5dywX4sj6dQ==.ico
IconIndex=0
I'd think that if the pointer pointed to by IconFile exists & is accessible it, it should display that as the shortcuts "icon".
(Suppose differences will exist depending on OS version.)
Fire 750, bring back 250.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.19) Gecko/20110420 SeaMonkey/2.0.14 Pinball CopyURL+ FetchTextURL FlashGot NoScript
Post Reply