Some Windows 11/10 users have been reporting that their desktop or explorer icons load slowly when they start the PC. If you are facing such an issue or if you find that your icons look weird or corrupted, you may want to increase the Icon Cache size and see if it helps you.
You may want to first rebuild Icon cache manually or using our 1-click freeware Thumbnail and Icon Cache Rebuilder for Windows 10, and see if it resolve your problem. Windows 8 and Windows 7 users may want to this post on how to purge & rebuild the Icon Cache in Windows 7/8. If it doesn’t help, proceed – as increasing the icon cache size is known to help.
Increase Icon Cache Size in Windows 11/10
To begin, first create a system restore point. Should something go wrong, you will be able to restore your computer back to this point.
Having done that, open WinX Menu and select Run. Type regedit and hit Enter to open the Registry Editor.
Now navigate to the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
Now right-click and create a new REG_SZ (String Value) and name it MaxCachedIcons.
Give it a value of 4096 (4MB) or 8192 which is 8MB.
Save and exit the Registry Editor and restart your computer.
See if this gives you positive results.
If the results are not to your expectation, you may delete the created REG_SZ (String Value) or change its value to 500, which is the default value.
You may also restore your computer to the created restore point, if you wish.
