Now, I really don't want to sound rude, but so far every time you say something it seems like one of us shortly thereafter corrects you or offers a contradictory opinion, you then change yours. Changing your mind, when new relevant information becomes available is an admirable quality, but maybe you should do some research before you keep spouting on about things that aren't true/relevant/sensible? Just as a tip. Also icon display functionality has very little to do with "OS management", a better example would have been comparing the way windows manages processes compared to the way (a specific branch of) linux does. Also I've never had this problem or heard of it being a persistent problem. Caching icons is a valid solution, so that multiple directories and originating exe/programs don't have to be scanned to display the correct icon and waste time when you could just cache it as far as I'm concerned. I mean how many applications actually change their icons frequently? Besides, all of that stuff really shouldn't be necessary to fix it if the cache gets corrupted, just a restart usually does the trick. Or you could delete the cache'd icons and tell it to refresh the directory. Alternate solutions. Finally, as a software developer please give me windows 8 over xp anyday.