Are you taking about website shortcut?

Check here

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/create-desktop-shortcut-website

Sorry I did not make myself clear, but thanks for trying to help. I do know how to create a website shortcut on the desktop and in fact do it rather frequently. It's just that all my existing website shortcuts on the desktop are showing with a generic Windows icon (the icon that sort of looks like a rudimentary desktop) instead of the previously seen (1)Firefox icon or (2)the mostly blank white icon with a tiny website icon in the center of it.

I suppose in the grand scheme of things, it is not a huge thing, but it always makes me think something is malfunctioning when I see those generic icons duplicated over and over on my desktop. None of my other desktop icons appear this way--just website shortcuts created from Firefox.

This is strange. I'm also running Windows 7 (64-bit). My old shortcuts draw their icon from firefox.exe, but new shortcuts draw their icon from a Windows file. Both have a white page with a Firefox icon on them, but the new one is a much smaller icon.

right-click a .url type shortcut > Properties > Web Document tab > Change Icon button > "Look for icons in this file":

Old shortcuts: C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe

New shortcuts: %SystemRoot%\system32\SHELL32.dll

I imagine this could be a known bug, but I haven't researched it.

You can check this pref on the about:config page.

• browser.shell.shortcutFavicons

I don't have that preference in the list at all. Should it be there?

Must be - I didn't find anything relevant in the shortcut options available.

No this is a hidden pref that doesn't exist by default, so you need to create this pref as a new Boolean pref via the right-click context menu on the about:config page.

• http://mxr.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/source/widget/windows/nsDataObj.cpp#1094

To spell that out more fully:

(1) Select and copy the following preference name:

browser.shell.shortcutFavicons

(2) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Click the button promising to be careful.

(3) Right-click an existing preference and choose New > Boolean

(4) Paste the name and click OK

(5) Choose false as the value and click OK.

You're done in about:config.

Some background:

• Bug 827784 - Provide an option to disable favicons on webpage shortcuts in Windows

Please do not comment in bug reports: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html

No matter what I do (with or without the added preference), the generic Windows icons on the desktop site shortcuts don't resolve. Without the added pref, when the shortcuts are deleted and recreated, some of them turn to the tiny specific site icons (not a problem for me), but with the pref, nothing seems to change at all. The red and blue Firefox icon must be gone forever for these shortcuts. It's not affecting performance, so I got rid of the added pref to at least get some of them to have something other than that horrible nondescript Windows icon. Thanks for trying to help me...I really appreciate it!

PS: I suspect why this is never a problem in IE is because it is integrated so well into Windows, more evidence IE gets an unfair advantage for Windows users. If it wasn't so dreadfully bad, I might use it..ha.

To summarise, in Firefox 25.0.1 (German) about:config should be changed from "browser.shell.shortcutFavicons Standard boolean true" to "browser.shell.shortcutFavicons vom Benutz... boolean false" in order to allow for a user defined icon of the URL link. Works great in the Win7 environment.