Tips to Recover your Icons

Some users are having trouble getting their icons back. Here are some suggestions.

The very first thing I would like you to do is check that you have the Dwgicon.dll on your computer. Some users have installed it and then removed the folder. The installation process does not copy the DWGicon.dll anywhere. Please make sure you do not run the install.exe from within your zip file, run it in your installation folder by double clicking in explorer.

Another thing you can try is go into FileTypes and delete .DWG altogether, but write down all settings first. Then create a fresh new one, copying the settings back in.

But first try the registry.
This is more a question of which version of AutoCAD® you are using than which version of Windows®.

AutoCAD 2000
AutoCAD 14
AutoCAD LT

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AutoCAD 2000

Press your 'Start' button and click on 'Run...'.
In the little box type 'regedit'.

Press OK.

Press Ctrl-F for the search dialog. Enter 'AutoCAD.Drawing.15'.

Press OK.

Press F3 until it says

'My Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AutoCAD.Drawing.15'

in the status line at the bottom of the registry editor.
Press cancel to come out of the search dialog.

Click on the little box left from the folder icon next to the AutoCAD.Drawing.15 entry. This will expand the tree and show the keys under 'AutoCAD.Drawing.15'. One of them is 'DefaultIcon'. Click on that.

It has either one value 'Default', or two - 'Default' and 'Old'. The values are in the right pane.

If you have an 'old' value, right click and copy via modify onto 'Default'. I am sure you get it.

If you don't have an old value, set the 'Default' value to your windows system path plus 'acadficn.dll,37'. Just do a search on your harddrive for the file 'acadficn.dll'. 37 is the index of the icon in this file. Don't forget the comma.

Exit regedit.

AutoCAD 14

Press your 'Start' button and click on 'Run...'.
In the little box type 'regedit'.

Press OK.

Press Ctrl-F for the search dialog. Enter 'AutoCAD.Drawing.14'.

Press OK.

Press F3 until it says

'My Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AutoCAD.Drawing.14'

in the status line at the bottom of the registry editor.
Press cancel to come out of the search dialog.

Click on the little box left from the folder icon next to the AutoCAD.Drawing.14 entry. This will expand the tree and show the keys under 'AutoCAD.Drawing.14'. One of them is 'DefaultIcon'. Click on that.

It has either one value 'Default', or two - 'Default' and 'Old'. The values are in the right pane.

If you have an 'old' value, right click and copy via modify onto 'Default'. I am sure you get it.

If you don't have an old value, set the 'Default' value to "%1"

Then click on 'shellex\IconHandler' (left pane - a branch in AutoCAD.Drawing.14) and set the 'Default' value to

"{E2C40589-DE61-11ce-BAE0-0020AF6D7005}"

Don't worry, you can safely copy that.

If there isn't an 'IconHandler' key under 'shellex' you'll have to create it.

Exit regedit.

AutoCAD LT

Sorry not sure about that one.