A program for changing system disk icons. Changing the appearance of icons in Windows

I continue the theme of decorations for those who sometimes get bored standard design Windows. Although many are now being produced ready-made assemblies, which are not only pre-installed (or optional) the necessary programs, but also with a built-in theme. But still there are “clean” ones, for fans of minimalism or if licensed version. It is for these people that I wrote this article. In it you will learn how using standard methods change the icon (icon) of a file or folder without using programs. And for something sweet, I’ll answer the question - ?

In general, I think that if you want to change Windows interface, then it will be much easier to download some theme with all the bells and whistles (wallpaper, folders, start, icons, shortcuts, cursor, etc. - everything will be changed), but my site is not dedicated to this, so I will show you as much as possible with my own change the icons by force.

How to change a folder icon

1) Click RMB ( right click mouse) on the folder we need

2) In the menu, select the last one - Property

3) In this window, select the tab Settings

4) Click on the button Change icon

5) This window will open, in which you simply select the icon you like for the folder from the list (note that you can “twist” it left and right using the slider. Don’t think that there are few icons there

Well, for those for whom this is not enough, I’ll answer the “sweet” question right away - Where are icons stored in Windows??
Here is the answer:

C:\Windows\System32\shell32.dll

C:\Windows\System32\imageres.dll

C:\Windows\System32\ddores.dll

For general information, I inform you - dll This is a library format. It is in these three files that Windows stores its icon library.

And that’s why I’ve now opened up this question about storage - if what’s in the set isn’t enough for you, just replace SHELL32.dll in the “Look for icons in the next file” field with imageres.dll and if that’s not enough, then with ddores. dll and click Enter. This is important, you don’t need to go anywhere else!
These files are also needed for all sorts of perverts who want to see what’s inside and “pull” these icons out of there (I don’t know why). For them, I hid a small guide under the spoiler.

1) Open one of the proposed files using the program (Following the link you can download the free 30-day version).
2) In the panel Resource tree open the folder Icon
3) Select any of the icons you like.
4) In the panel Resource tree right click on this resource and select Extract... → Extract as "resource_name.ico"
5) Select the folder to extract and click Save

You can also extract all the icons at once, to do this:
6) In the panel Resource tree right click on the folder Icon and select Extract... → Extract all as "Icon" type
7) Select the folder to extract and click OK

6) After you have selected the icon you need, click OK and enjoy the result of your work.

How to change a file icon
The principle is the same as for folders, only the difference is in the window Properties- there we need to click on Change icon

A window like this will appear in which you need to select an icon

If there are no icons there or few, then you can put the paths there that are written in the method described above for folders (for example C:\Windows\System32\imageres.dll)

Icons are needed either in the library ( dll) or exe file or ico or png. Basically, they only change the icon on the folders.

And then my surprise appears. I have prepared for you a small collection of icons in the format ico. All you need is to download, save, unpack and specify the path to the icon using the button Review.. in the shortcut or folder settings.

This is more for familiarization than to use them specifically. Still, the article is more about standard methods. If there is anything more, write, I’m always happy to help.

If you are tired of the standard icon design in Windows 10 and 7, you can change it. Who needs monotonous folders that are no different from each other? After all, they can choose individual icons. For books - a volume in a beautiful binding, for documents - a stack of papers with a paper clip, for music - sheet music, for games - a joystick. If you do the same with shortcuts and system directories, you get a unique design theme. Find out how to change icons in Windows 7 and other versions. You can decide for yourself how your desktop elements will look.

There are several requirements for the image. She must be:

Square.
In .ICO format.
Suitable size (16x16, 32x32, 48x48 or 256x256).

Go to Start - Run.
In the window that opens, enter “regedit” without quotes and click OK. The Registry Editor will appear.

Click File - Export.
Come up with a name for backup copy and indicate where to save it. If something goes wrong, you can restore them all.

Now start changing icons.

In the registry, open the folder “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE”
Go to "SOFTWARE".
Then in Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer.
Right-click on Explorer.
Item “Create - Section”.
Name it "Shell Icons". If such a directory is already in the list, open it.
In the right part of the window, call the context menu and select “Create - Stock parameter”.
Write type 3 (three).
Right-click on the newly created parameter “3” (“Three”).
“Change” item.
In the “Values” section, enter the path to the icon along with the file name and extension.
If you have a 64-bit system, open the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE folder again.
But this time go to Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer
And repeat all the steps described above.
Restart your computer and evaluate the new kind icons

Edit the registry only if you are well versed in this matter. Get one parameter mixed up and errors will occur.

If you don't like the way folders and shortcuts look, you can change their icons. You only need pictures of a certain format. This way you will make a beautiful desktop.

Standard folder symbols and Windows files wander from version to version and, perhaps, someone is quite tired of them. However, many users do not suspect that these icons can be replaced with others. The system's capabilities in this regard are too limited, but, fortunately, third-party developers have made sure that we can diversify the design of Windows 8 to our liking.

Let's figure out how and by what means you can change the standard Windows icons 8 to more attractive.

Changing icons using Windows

Consider a situation where you need to change the icon of a single folder or shortcut to make it stand out from the rest. Let's assume you don't have any special desires for originality and you'll be satisfied standard icons from the Windows set.

Changing the folder image

Open the context menu of the folder whose icon you want to change and select Properties.

Go to the “Settings” tab and click the “Change Icon” button.

By default, a set of icons will open from system library Shell32. Select suitable image and click OK. If none of the pictures suits you, you can click “Browse” and select another file with icons. The icons contain various Windows libraries and executables, but to find something specific, you need to know exactly where to look.

Click on an empty area of the desktop and press F5 - the desktop will refresh and the folder will change appearance.

To return the folder to its original icon, open the change icon window again and click “Restore Defaults.”

Changing standard desktop icons

The standard desktop icons in Windows 8 are the “This PC”, “Trash”, “User Files” and “Network” icons.

To access the necessary settings open the Personalization panel. To get there, call up the desktop context menu and click the corresponding item in it.

Click “Change desktop icons” in the navigation bar.

In the “Icon Options” window, select what you want to change and click “Change Icon”.

By default, a set of icons from the imageres.dll library will be opened. Select any image and click OK. The icon will change.

To return the default image in the “Desktop Icon Options” window, click the “Normal Icon” button.

Changing program shortcut images

The program's desktop shortcut image is created based on the resources of the program itself. The icon is usually contained in the executable file or some library of that application.

To change the image of a shortcut, open its properties from the context menu, go to the “Shortcut” tab and click “Change Icon”.

Select one of the suggested options or click “Browse” and specify a different file. In our example, the MEGAsync application icon is located in the MEGAsync.exe executable file.

After selecting a different icon and clicking OK, the program's shortcut will be changed.

Installing icons from other sources

On the Internet you can find a lot of tools for Windows design. This and ready-made themes, which include icons for folders and system icons, and thematic sets of pictures in ico format(single icons), icl (icon groups different sizes) or png ( ordinary pictures with elements of transparency), and applications for changing icons with “one click”.

Icon set

To set a picture as an icon in png format, you must first convert it to ico. To do this, you can use a simple program AveIconifier2.

Drag and drop into the right window of the program png file, from the left we take ico and throw it into the same folder. After that, change the folder icon in the same way as we discussed above. We specify the folder with the set of icons as the source.

Here's what we ended up with:

Applications

Programs for changing icons have O greater opportunities. With their help you can design not only folders and system icons, but also files, drive icons in the “This PC” directory, control panel items, etc.

IconTo

As an example of such programs, consider IconTo. It comes with about 300 icons in different artistic styles, but you can install more than just them.

Run IconTo as an administrator.
Click the “Specify folder/file” item. Let's check if the program can change icons for an entire type of file (let's take text files, for example).

Select an icon. The program makes it possible to install icons from Windows 8 files, from its own, quite rich set, or any others. Let's take one of the pictures from our fruit set.

After selecting the appropriate image, click “Set Icon”.

Here's what we got: everything text files Now they look very tasty.

To bring them back to standard view, you need to click “Remove icon from folder”.

Other programs work in a similar way. Their capabilities are quite enough to completely transform Windows, but with restoration to as before sometimes problems arise. Therefore, before running such an application, create a restore point in case final result will not satisfy you.

Having released a new operating system Windows 10 Microsoft company gave it many new functions and significantly redesigned the system design. Desktop icons have also undergone changes. Many users are accustomed to the old icons that were present on Windows 7. Therefore, non-standard icons after the transition to the new Windows 10 did not appeal to many PC users. IN new Windows 10 they can be easily changed for any shortcut on the desktop. In this material we will describe all the ways to change icons in Windows 10. In addition, we will describe the process of creating new icons.

Changing the icons of the main desktop shortcuts

Basic desktop shortcuts include links such as " This computer», « Control Panel», « Basket" To change these icons, you need to go to the " Options» to links « CUSTOMIZATION/Themes».

Now let's try to change the shortcut " Basket" To do this, select the basket and click on the Change icon button.

In the list of shortcuts that appears, we will select the one we like and confirm our decision with the Apply button. Below is a basket with a different image.

Users can also use icons not from standard libraries Windows 10, and from third party sources. One such source is the package free icons « Open Icon Library" You can download this package on its official website https://sourceforge.net/projects/openiconlibrary. After downloading and unpacking the archive, about 10 thousand icons will be available to you various formats. To use them from the “Open Icon Library”, click on the same button Change icon for the recycle bin shortcut. In the window that appears, click on the Browse button. . . . After that, select one of the “Open Icon Library” shortcuts. Below is a cart using images from the Open Icon Library.

Which Windows 10 desktop shortcuts can be changed?

The main desktop elements for which you can change icons are shortcuts (links to programs, files and folders) and folders. Let's describe an example of changing the icon in Google Chrome. To do this, go to the properties of the browser shortcut.

Now if we click on the button Change icon. . ., then we will have four options for choosing an icon.

From the example it is clear that when we get to the icon selection list window, the same window appears in front of us as in the first example. The only difference is that all icons are taken not from the system library, but from executable file"chrome.exe". In this window, just like in the first example, you can select an icon from “ Open Icon Library"or any other.

Now let's look at changing the icon for folders on the desktop. For example, we will create a folder named “Icon” on the desktop. After creating it, we will go to its properties on the “ tab Settings».

On this tab, click on the button that is already familiar to us Change icon. . .. After this action, the same window will appear in front of us, as in the previous examples.

The principle of replacing folder icons with a third-party one, and not from the “shell32.dll” library, is the same as in the previous examples.

We create icons ourselves

For this example we will use the program IcoFX. This program can Easily create different icons from raster images . For this example we will take free photo from the site https://pixabay.com. This site has thousands of free images.

We will also download and install the program IcoFX. After that we will open IcoFX program, and also open our image in it.

When opening an image, the utility prompts us to make a choice. We will focus on the option " Create an icon from the image" This option will open our image in a reduced resolution, which can be saved for use as an icon.

After selection suitable size icon you can save it. In our case, the size is 256 × 256. It is saved in the “*ico” file format. Below is an example of a Shortcut user shortcut with our icon.

Using IcoFX, you can create various icons from raster and vector images, which are located on the desktop.

Setting label sizes

Changing the size of desktop shortcuts is quite easy. To do this, go to the active desktop and right-click on it. After this action, a context menu will open in which you need to go to the line “ View».

As you can see in the image above, you can make the size large, regular, and small. This setting allows you to adjust the size for monitors with different resolutions and diagonals. For example, for large monitors You can reduce the size of the labels, and for small diagonals make them large. It is also worth noting that in the “View” item you can pin shortcuts in a grid and pin them automatically to the desktop.

Finally

After reading this article, you will learn how easy it is to change icons in Windows 10. In addition, the article shows how you can create icons from bitmap images yourself. We hope the material will help our readers change icons in Windows 10, as well as create new ones.