Icons flashing/redrawing in Windows 10 Explorer when image files are in folder ... sometimes

C

CharlesCurley

I have a problem where Windows 10 (completely patched up to today) Explorer will flash icons continuously when there are certain image file types in the folder that is being displayed. This flashing includes the desktop folder and any other folder that I have open in Windows Explorer. Here is an interesting observation also, the "This PC", "Network", "Recycle Bin", and "Control Panel" icons don't seem to flash, just all the other icons.



This isn't a entire screen flashing problem that I see people trying to answer like it is driver problem. Regardless, I have updated Nvidia drivers to the latest. Other application windows are fine and do not exhibit flashing of any kind. My Chrome browser window is completely stable right now and the icons on the desktop are redrawing repeatedly.



I created a folder called "tmp" on my desktop and once I moved the image files into the folder the flashing stops. If I open that folder, the flashing returns. This happens with many different images and at least two image types, JPEG and PNG. I just downloaded several new images from Google search for testing.



Also, I cleared all the thumbnails via the disk cleanup on the C drive. No difference.



I have installed GIMP and IrfanView. I do have IrfanView set via its interface to handle images. I have uninstalled it and that didn't help. I've reinstalled it and that didn't help either. This was happening before I installed GIMP. They are both currently uninstalled.



To further investigate what is going on, I created a folders called "jpg", "gif", and "png" and placed images of the type into the those folders. When I open the "gif" folder I don't get flashing. When I open either "jpg" or "png" the flashing starts until I close the folder.

I went to Settings -> Apps -> Default apps and it shows that I don't have a default photo viewer. When I hit Reset, it goes away for a bit but doesn't put anything in for Photo viewer. It did wipe my browser and email but left Music player to what it was, VLC. When I tried to change Photo viewer by clicking plus button and choose Photos (recommended by Windows 10) it does nothing. I tried again, and this time the entire Settings window closes. Trying again, I can easily change my email back to Outlook and browser back to Chrome. BTW, the whole time I'm trying to change the default photo viewer my desktop icons are flashing. When I close that Settings panel, flashing stops. If I choose another Photo app instead of Photos it still closes the window and doesn't change anything.



If I try "Choose default app by file type" it goes to the window to try to give me a list but just stays busy and never populates the types. The little busy dots keep going across the top from time to time. I've tried this multiple times. By chance while it was trying to load the types, I brought up task manager and restarted Windows Explorer. A few seconds later, the “Choose default app by file type” window populated. Once the window populated the desktop icons stopped flashing. Trying to change one of the first settings resulted in a hung window that finally closed. Going all the way back and restarting Explorer got me to the same scenario. Going down to “.jpg” I see that “.jpeg” is set to “Photos” but “.jpg’ doesn’t have a default. Clicking to change default and choosing “Photos” causes window to close. Here is the Event Viewer log:



Faulting application name: SystemSettings.exe, version: 10.0.18362.449, time stamp: 0x066bf1a5

Faulting module name: Windows.UI.Xaml.dll, version: 10.0.18362.449, time stamp: 0xb90db728

Exception code: 0xc000027b

Fault offset: 0x0000000000712ec0

Faulting process id: 0x6380

Faulting application start time: 0x01d5d84ddedf4f12

Faulting application path: C:\Windows\ImmersiveControlPanel\SystemSettings.exe

Faulting module path: C:\Windows\System32\Windows.UI.Xaml.dll

Report Id: 0110f1ba-3ea1-4907-b389-eda51d54210b

Faulting package full name: windows.immersivecontrolpanel_10.0.2.1000_neutral_neutral_cw5n1h2txyewy

Faulting package-relative application ID: microsoft.windows.immersivecontrolpanel



I have tried registry fixes from various forums and such w/o success. I have tried deleting both the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.jpg and HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\.jpg which didn’t have any effect that I can tell.


I’m basically out of ideas. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

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