IE 6.0 Favorites: Icons suddenly turned generic

[glomedia]

Whenever I added a page to my Favorites in IE 6.0, the site's custom icon would appear in the Favorites menu. Recently I noticed that these icons have all turned to the generic "e" icons.

Ever since I installed Microsoft Office 97 (Professional) I noticed a few anomalies, like Internet Explorer Script Errors that say "library not registered" when I try print preview. (It also occurs when I open my Norton Antivirus app, effectively disabling it.)

Could these be related? Do you think it calls for a reinstall of IE 6.0? Thanks for the insight.

[Fuelm@n]

You can disable the script errors under Internet Options/Advanced tab/under Browsing there are 2 options to tick or untick.

Your icon changed to the generic look possibly after you cleaned out your Internet Temp folder/history. You may try looking for a program called FavOrg that'll redownload them and keep them within its own folder even after you clean out the temp folder.

[Welshjim]

glomedia--You can get FavOrg from PCMagazine, but they now charge for it. Last I looked, however, it was still free at
http://www.pctip.ch/library/downloads/dl.asp?id=1840
If you do not want to use a third party program, post back and I can tell you how to manually keep your Favicons in the future.

[Ridgerunr]

This one won't give you your favicons back,but it sure works for finding dead links: http://www.webattack.com/get/amdeadlink.shtml

[Welshjim]

Ridgerunr--So you like AMDeadlink.
I installed it recently and find it does a workman-like job informing me of deadlinks (in view of its name, I guess that is what I should expect!!). It also differentiated between errors, redirects and a few other categories.
However, it does not cure anything. That is up to the user to do manually.
And some of the reported deadlinks are not. Secure connection sites are reported as errors as are FTP sites and Java script sites.
I am not saying all that is bad, but I think FavOrg cures things more automatically.
Most importantly for this thread as you have mentioned, AMDeadlink does nothing to retain or retrieve Favicons.
For those who only want to keep their Favicons, I can offer a totally manual tutorial. (Hint, hint)
P.S. Does FavOrg really automatically give you the Favicon back? Or do you have to visit the site again?

[Report_2]

"Does FavOrg really automatically give you the Favicon back? Or do you have to visit the site again?"

It looks them up again without visually visiting the site. It does it quite quickly.

[Ridgerunr]

Jim,,your right about having to choose on your own with AM. And no, it won't be accurate on a secure site such as your banking site. But i just bring the bad ones it may find to the top and copy any ones i'm not sure of off to check later.
I agree that FavOrg is more user friendly, but i've also had it say a link couldn't be found and the link was ok. Go figger...
Perhaps a slow loading page will be misinterpreted?

[Welshjim]

Report_2--thanks for the input. I have recommended FavOrg, but have never used it.
I like my manual method. (Hint, hint)
Ridgerunr--thanks for your input, too. I guess all these programs require some human assistance.

[glomedia]

Originally posted by Welshjim
If you do not want to use a third party program, post back and I can tell you how to manually keep your Favicons in the future.

Do tell, Welsh Jim. Can you post your method to the forum? (If it's too long a tutorial to type here, advise if you prefer to distribute it some other way.)

[Welshjim]

glomedia--Glad you asked

Favicons, if a site has one, are downloaded to Temporary Internet Files when you create a Favorite.
The problem is that the Favicons are deleted each time you clean up your TIF.
There are two ways (at least) to make the Favicons permanent. (I wrote this some time ago, so forgive me if I re-cover territory.)
"Favicons
1)You can keep/retrieve those icons with the following procedure.
Create a Favicons folder (like C:\Favicons).
Do a Find on favicon*.ico. Whatever icons you have collected since the last time you deleted your TIF will show up. Each will have the name favicon*.ico where the * is a number. In the Find window right click on an icon and left click on Rename. Give it a name related to whatever site it is the icon for (like, name-of-site.ico). Then drag and drop (or if you have Send To set up) to move or copy the icon to that C:\Favicons folder. Repeat for each icon you want to keep.
Now right click on a Favorite in the Favorites list, click Properties, Change Icon, and in the next window type in C:\Favicons\name-of-site.ico.
Click OK twice,click Apply and OK in the next window. Now that Favorite is permanently associated with an icon in your C:\Favicons folder and you won't lose the icon when you clean your cache.
If you want to go back and get all the old icons you have lost, recreate a Favorite just for the purpose of getting the icon to download again. After going through the above procedure you can delete the new, duplicate Favorite.
2)Use third party program
FavOrg : http://search.atomz.com/search/?sp-a...l=1&sp-w=alike
(This program was originally available from PCMag, but they now charge for it. The above link, however, offers it as freeware.) "

There are a very few exceptions to the above. Some sites do not deposit a Favicon in TIF as favicon*.ico but rather as name-of-site.ico, but this is rare. You may find it in the Content.IE5 subfiles. And of course many sites do not deposit any Favicon.
On a related but slightly different subject, sometimes the Favicon, even after being stored permanently, per the above, will not show in the Address bar, although it does show in the Favorites list. At many sites (but not all), you can make the Favicon show in the Address bar by right-clicking on whatever icon is in the Address bar when you visit the site (and after you have stored the Favicon per the above), dragging the icon a little ways and then dragging it back to the Address bar. The page reloads, and if you have been successful the Favicon will show and be permanently retrieved each time you visit the site. Sometimes it take several tries to be successful and at some sites the procedure does not seem to work.
Finally you often can see the Favicon for a site by accessing "www.sitename.com/favicon.ico" <http://www.sitename.com/favicon.ico>;. (This URL is here only as an example. It is non-functioning.)
You can then download and use the Favicon as described above.