Why does this happen ? I have favourites with their own fav.ico which shows up nicely in the list. Then for no apparent reason they vanish and are replaced by the standard MS icon.
Nothing seems to bring them back.

It's because Windows is sh**e !! I have the same problem!!

IIRC their is a problem (or used to be) with windows running out of memory that is assigned to cache icons in, their was some way of fixing but i carnt remember how, a registry entry or something.
ill have a google and see if i can find it.