Barbara -

As noted above, the site/favorites icons are only stored in temporary spots, so they often "go away," and that application reverts to a default icon. So far as I know, there's no setting you can make to automatically make them permanent, and once the default "IE" icon has been linked - it never goes away, so it will remain the "permanent" icon for that link/site, unless you go back to a site and the site forces a new "temporary" icon on. Most sites aren't "pushy" enough to replace the IE icon if it's already been linked to their cookie.

To get a site icon to "stick," you have to find the icon, move it to some permanent storage location, and re-establish the link to that icon in the new location. Otherwise, expect that the default "IE" icon will eventually replace them all. I don't have a problem with all of them having the same icon, since I'm one of the old farts that learned to read names and dislike the excessive use of "cutesy" icons on principle. With the exception of a "visual cue" for locating shortcuts to permanently installed programs on the desktop, I have no use at all for icons (well very little use ... they do provide a helpful visual cue in Win Explorer when you sort by type.).

If you want, you can right click on almost anything, chose properties, and find a "change icon" button that allows you to use any icon you happen to have permanently stored on your machine for that "item." If you want the icon you get from a site, you do have to find the icon in temp files (location and naming varies) and move it to some permanent location. About the only place this doesn't work, is on the address bar, where the icon apparently has to be present in, or liked to, your cookie for that site.

If the icon on the address bar changes, it's because the cookie that contained the icon has "crumbled," as it's supposed to do in most cases.

Some people do like to put shortcuts to web stuff on desktop, or in the start bar; and for those locations it is sometimes helpful to have a "visually significant" icon, so I'll watch for new postings on the details of icon recovery and re-linking; but for the addy bar it doesn't really seem worth the hassle (to me) of constantly "restoring" or "individually linking" icons for links.

If a particular link had an icon you'd like to restore, you may be able to delete the cookie(s) for that site, go back to the site and get a "new" cookie, and the icon may (or may not) come back. In all likelihood, the "restored" icon will disappear again, though, after a while, unless you find the icon itself, save it permanently, and re-establish (not simple) the link to that icon for that address.

IF refreshing/replacing the cookie gets the icon back, you may be able to export the cookie to "permanent storage" so that you can just move it back when the icon goes away again; but many cookies "expire" so this isn't always a satisfactory method.

John