{"id":11830,"date":"2019-11-11T12:30:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-11T11:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/159.69.82.204\/win\/?p=11830"},"modified":"2023-07-19T17:05:12","modified_gmt":"2023-07-19T15:05:12","slug":"windows-10-v1903-shows-suddenly-generic-usb-drive-icons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/2019\/11\/11\/windows-10-v1903-shows-suddenly-generic-usb-drive-icons\/","title":{"rendered":"Windows 10 V1903 shows suddenly generic USB drive icons"},"content":{"rendered":"

[German<\/a>]A bug in Windows 10 is currently (since the weekend of November 9, 2019) unsettling users who use USB storage devices. Instead of a USB drive, the Explorer now displays a generic device icon. Here is some information about the problem.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"I got aware of the issue through this comment<\/a> left by blog reader John Doe within the discussion area of my German blog (thanks to user John Doe for the hint).<\/p>\n

The error description<\/h2>\n

After reading the comment, I've tested the behavior on two systems with Windows 10 version 1903 with two USB sticks and made an interesting observation. When I inserted the first USB stick into one of my test systems, it was correctly recognized and displayed with a name and an icon for a drive in Explorer.<\/p>\n

\"Explorer<\/p>\n

In the above screenshot this is drive G: named antiXlive<\/em>. But what is already noticeable: The USB drive D:<\/em> is displayed with a generic symbol in the form of a stylized computer. The drive had no media inserted on the machine, so it is hidden. I then unplugged the USB stick and plugged it into a second test machine and opened the Explorer. There the USB stick was already displayed with a generic drive icon (see image below).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Then I used a second USB stick to on the first test system with Windows 10 Version 1903 and plugged it in. First a proper icon for this device was shown. But after a few seconds the generic drive icon with a stylized computer appeared. So I ejected the USB stick and tried the 2nd USB stick. But both USB sticks was now be displayed with a generic drive icon in Explorer. In the screenshot above, it is drive D: labeled antiXlive.<\/p>\n

Something happened with the USB drive detection and Windows 10 V1903 shows a faulty device icon.<\/p>\n

\"Ger\u00e4te-Manager\"<\/p>\n

I have inspected the relevant branches in the Device Manager (see image above). The USB stick is displayed correctly as SanDisk Cruzer Edge USB device and in the USB controller branch I can't find anything conspicuous.<\/p>\n

Multiple hits in Microsoft Answers forum<\/h2>\n

Blog reader John Doe has pointed out several hits in the Microsoft Answers forum in his commentary (here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here). What all users have in common is that the wrong (generic) device icon is suddenly displayed in Explorer. One user wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n

My USB drives shows either as a generic device or a non-specified device<\/p>\n

As the title stated, all of my USB drives shows with a \"generic device icon\" in windows explorer, and when im about to remove my device it shows as \"remove \"device\"\", when I plug the device it shows the normal drive icon for a split seccond and then changes to a generic icon, which it doesnt affect the performance of my drives, but makes me suspect that something is wrong on my computer while detecting my usb devices.<\/p>\n

I've attached some screenshots of this so you can understand me a little bit more<\/p>\n

Cheers (I apologize if you have a hard time reading the screenshots because my pc is in spanish)<\/p>\n

PS: Most of my usb drives are made by kingston and it normally shows as \"Data Traveler x.0\"<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The\u00a0 MVP colleague tried to assist this users, and suggest in step 4 to roll back driver settings (which helped in this case). From what I understand, Greg Carmack has tried to give an explanation in this thread<\/a> (he mentioned that 'MS changed the default away from Safely Remove' may be the case).<\/p>\n

Changed drive policy or just a bug?<\/h2>\n

Based on Greg Carmack's explanation, that back in April 2019, Microsoft changed its policy for handling removable media (USB storage) and that may be the cause for the 'changed icon' – I tried to change that policy. Microsoft has posted this support article<\/a> on the subject, and I reported this change in the blog post Windows 10 V1809: Changes removal policy for USB media<\/a> with steps to on how to change the policy back to the previous behavior.<\/p>\n

After I've changed the drives eject policy, I ejected the USB stick and plugged it in again. In fact, a proper drive icon for the USB stick appeared in Explorer shortly afterwards. When I wrote this article and went back to my test machine, the generic symbol has been displayed again in Explorer. So changing the policy didn't help on my test systems.<\/p>\n

So it's my conclusion: It has nothing to do with the chanced device policy (I've doubt this, due to the fact, that this behavior just occurred, but the policy change has been there since April\/May). It's simply a bug! I don't know, which update is responsible – possibly the cumulative update KB4517389<\/a> rolled out on October 8, 2019 (see Patchday Windows 10-Updates (October 8, 2019)<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Addendum<\/strong>: Got a feedback<\/a> from my German blog readers. It seems that the issue also hit users of older Windows 10 builds, and also users of Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 as well. It seems, that the icons are getting downloaded (erronously) from Microsoft for 'new devices' (something with 'download user defined icons \u2026' in extended device settings in control panel).<\/p>\n

Addendum 2:<\/strong> This is also the hint given from Miguel Sim\u00f5es_PT within this MS answers forum thread<\/a> – cite: '<\/p>\n

This problem didn't come from the latest CU. It's a server side problem. Every time a device is plugged in, it requests metadata from microsoft servers about the type of device , name, model, etc. Opening the window \"Devices and printers\" seems to be what triggers the bug.'<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or has anyone seen the bug on older Windows 10 builds? I will try to point Microsoft's software engineers to this article, in the hope, that they will fix this issue.<\/p>\n

Addendum 3<\/strong>: Bleeping computer has an interesting addendum to this article<\/a> describing the location of the metadata cache. But I wasn't able till now, to revert the broken icons back.<\/p>\n

Similar articles:<\/strong>
\nWindows 10 V1809: USB Type-C Shutdown bug confirmed<\/a>
\nWindows 10 V1903: External USB storage as Upgrade blocker<\/a>
\nWindows 10: Not enough USB Controller resources<\/a>
\nWindows 10 V1809: Changes removal policy for USB media<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[German]A bug in Windows 10 is currently (since the weekend of November 9, 2019) unsettling users who use USB storage devices. Instead of a USB drive, the Explorer now displays a generic device icon. Here is some information about the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[463,2],"tags":[47,2169,76],"class_list":["post-11830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-issue","category-windows","tag-issue","tag-usb-media","tag-windows-10"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11830\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/borncity.com\/win\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}