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Windows 10: How to fix you desktop flashing icons

CloudScale AI SEO - Article Summary
  • 1.
    What it is
    A troubleshooting guide for fixing Windows 10 desktop icons that continuously flash while explorer.exe consumes high CPU resources.
  • 2.
    Why it matters
    This flickering icon problem can make your computer sluggish and unusable, but these three steps can restore normal desktop performance without reinstalling Windows.
  • 3.
    Key takeaway
    Desktop icon flashing with high CPU usage can usually be fixed by clearing the icon cache, adjusting registry settings, or disabling Windows indexing.

Just popping this here as I have had this a few times. Have you ever had your desktop icons flash and if you check explorer.exe its using high CPU. If so try:

Step 1. Delete the Icon Cache

Save the following as a batch file on your desktop and run it as admin:

cd /d %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer 
attrib –h iconcache_*<em>.db  </em>
<em>del iconcache_</em>*.db 
start explorer
pause

Step 2. Tweak the Registry

Try setting these two reg keys to zero:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop:ForegroundFlashCount
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop:ForegroundLockTimeout

Step 3. Switch of Indexing

Run either of these commands (as admin) to stop or suspend windows indexing

sc config cisvc start= disabled
sc config cisvc start= demand