It has been observed that conflicts with the default program settings in Windows can cause plain white icons to be displayed on your ‘.docx‘ files. As such, you may not see any Microsoft Word icon. If Microsoft Word icon is blank or missing, & not showing correctly or properly on .doc & .docx document files of Office on Windows 11/10, then you can try the solutions outlined below in the post.
In most cases, a simple computer restart or a refresh of the folder can resolve the problem. Press F5 and see. You should also check and ensure that the file extension of such files is either .doc or .docx. If that doesn’t help, then read further.
Right-click on a DOCX file and select ‘Open with…’ option.
Next, when prompted with ‘How do you want to open this file’ message, choose ‘More apps’ option.
Now, scroll down and check the box marked against the ‘Always use this app to open .docx files’ option.
This should help.
Now type ‘regedit’ in search box and press Enter to open Registry Editor.
Navigate to the following path in the left pane:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Word.Document.12\DefaultIcon
The path will depend on your Office version.
When done, hit the Enter key. After that, close Registry Editor and restart your computer.
The problem should be resolved.
At times, icons of various files may not appear due to the cache problem. Therefore, you could rebuild the icon cache to fix this issue on your computer. Rebuild the Icon cache and see if it helps. You may use our Thumbnail and Icon Cache Rebuilder to do so with a click.
If the Office icons are blank after installing Office from the Microsoft Store, then Open Settings > Apps. Find Microsoft Office Desktop Apps in the app list, select it and click on Advanced options. Click Fix. Then wait till the process is over and then restart your computer. If the problem persists, repeat these steps but click Reset instead of Fix.
If none of the aforementioned solutions is working for you, you may need to consider repairing your Office installation on your computer.
To get your Microsoft Word icons back in Windows 11/10, you need to rebuild the icon cache, change the default Word icon in Registry, etc. At last, you may try repairing your Office installation on your computer using the official tool.
At times, Microsoft Word may not show the icon of files on your Windows 11/10 computer. It mainly happens when there are some internal conflicts in your system files. However, you may be able to fix the issue by following the guides mentioned above.
Updated on March 16, 2023 Tags: Icons, Word
Anand Khanse is the Admin of TheWindowsClub.com, a 10-year Microsoft MVP (2006-16) & a Windows Insider MVP (2016-2022). Please read the entire post & the comments first, create a System Restore Point before making any changes to your system & be careful about any 3rd-party offers while installing freeware.
