Question: All of my desktop shortcut icons on Windows 7 have changed to Notepad icons.

How do I get my old icons back?

Answer: 
The simplest and quickest way I found is on 
[this forum](http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_programs/undo-file-association-for-lnk-extension-to/f13b105e-8ea3-47e4-aeda-66f8fc1e839d?rtAction=1401615592302).

This simply says to delete all the keys for **.lnk** extension. The procedure is:

* Press *[Win + R]* to open *run* and then type `regedit` and hit *ENTER*
* Go to the **HKEY\_CURRENT\_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts.lnk** folder
* Remove every subfolder (called *keys* in *regedit*) and the keys they contain
* Now restart the PC

Now everything works fine.
Download and Run the batch file [from this location](http://www.sevenforums.com/attachments/tutorials/274775d1372780091-icon-cache-rebuild-rebuild_icon_cache.bat)  

Follow the instructions in the command prompt to rebuild the Icon Cache.  

Restart your computer to generate a new IconCache.db file.