Changing folder icons

[hardtailstar]

Is it me or can you not change folder Icons in Win 7?

 

We previously changed Icons for folders in Win XP but I cant find out how to do it in Win 7.

 

any ideas?

Edited March 7, 2014 by hardtailstar

[hardtailstar]

Ive found where the icons are but when trying to customize the folder it wont recognize the file.

 

any more ideas?

[Gibson335]

On the local PC drive you can - but I don't believe you can for a share.

[hardtailstar]

On the local PC drive you can - but I don't believe you can for a share.

 

I can on both but when you click the 'customize' tab it does not recognize the shell32.dll file where the icons are.

 

Could they be elsewhere?

[jamesfed]

How about create two volumes - one (say 40GB in size for a Windows OS install) and the other with the reminder of the capacity of the drives with everything in RAID0.

 

Install Windows and then use the blank space eraser tool in Eraser (Eraser | Internet Security and Privacy) on the other partition to obliterate anything that might still be around.

[hardtailstar]

How about create two volumes - one (say 40GB in size for a Windows OS install) and the other with the reminder of the capacity of the drives with everything in RAID0.

 

Install Windows and then use the blank space eraser tool in Eraser (Eraser | Internet Security and Privacy) on the other partition to obliterate anything that might still be around.

 

How will that help locating the folder Icons?

[Gibson335]

I can on both but when you click the 'customize' tab it does not recognize the shell32.dll file where the icons are.

 

Could they be elsewhere?

 

I guess run a search for it and then browse to it whilst you're in change icon, but odd that it isn't defaulted.

[jamesfed]

lol replying to a different post and ended up on this one by mistake oops!

[Steve21]

Which ones is it you want to change?

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Icons

Reg-SZ:3 "IconPath"

 

Would set default folders to that ICO image etc.

 

Steve

[hardtailstar]

I guess run a search for it and then browse to it whilst you're in change icon, but odd that it isn't defaulted.

 

Tried, Its finding the folders in the same location but not the file.

 

lol replying to a different post and ended up on this one by mistake oops!

 

Makes sense! lol

 

Which ones is it you want to change?

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Icons

Reg-SZ:3 "IconPath"

 

Would set default folders to that ICO image etc.

 

Steve

 

I just want to change a normal folder's icon in a shared network drive, We currently have them all to a set icon depending on the drive (teachers like the difference so they can tell if in wrong place!) which was changed in Win Xp but we have changed over to win 7 since and need some folders with the same Icon but cant.

[Jobos]

We have a different icon for each network drive. Using the machine GP run a bat file setting the icons like

 

REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\WINDOWS\CURRENTVERSION\EXPLORER\DRIVEICONS\[color="#FF0000"]H[/color]\defaulticon" /v "" /d "%SystemRoot%\system32\SHELL32.dll,111" /t REG_SZ /f

REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\WINDOWS\CURRENTVERSION\EXPLORER\DRIVEICONS\[color="#FF0000"]L[/color]\defaulticon" /v "" /d "%SystemRoot%\system32\SHELL32.dll,160" /t REG_SZ /f

REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\WINDOWS\CURRENTVERSION\EXPLORER\DRIVEICONS\[color="#FF0000"]P[/color]\defaulticon" /v "" /d "%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll,193" /t REG_SZ /f

REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\WINDOWS\CURRENTVERSION\EXPLORER\DRIVEICONS\[color="#FF0000"]S[/color]\defaulticon" /v "" /d "%SystemRoot%\system32\SHELL32.dll,158" /t REG_SZ /f

REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\WINDOWS\CURRENTVERSION\EXPLORER\DRIVEICONS\[color="#FF0000"]N[/color]\defaulticon" /v "" /d "%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll,117" /t REG_SZ /f

REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\WINDOWS\CURRENTVERSION\EXPLORER\DRIVEICONS\[color="#FF0000"]T[/color]\defaulticon" /v "" /d "%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll,106" /t REG_SZ /f

REG ADD "HKLM\SOFTWARE\MICROSOFT\WINDOWS\CURRENTVERSION\EXPLORER\DRIVEICONS\[color="#FF0000"]R[/color]\defaulticon" /v "" /d "%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll,166" /t REG_SZ /f

 

The letters in red are the drive letters and you can find the icon number for SHELL32.dll here http://www.fuwi.ethz.ch/images/Icons_in_shell32.jpg

[Arthur]

To change the icon of a folder, all you need to do is create a text file containing the code shown below, save it as desktop.ini within the folder you want to change the icon of and then hide it (e.g. via "attrib +s +h desktop.ini" or Windows Explorer).

 

 

 

 

Folder 1

[.ShellClassInfo]
IconFile=C:\Windows\System32\imageres.dll
IconIndex=203

 

Folder 2

[.ShellClassInfo]
IconFile=C:\Windows\System32\imageres.dll
IconIndex=67

 

Folder 3

[.ShellClassInfo]
IconFile=C:\Windows\System32\imageres.dll
IconIndex=98

 

If you want to use an .ico file for the icon, your desktop.ini should contain the following...

 

 

Folder 4

[.ShellClassInfo]
IconFile=C:\Program Files (x86)\Icons\Padlock.ico
IconIndex=0

 

Folder 5

[.ShellClassInfo]
IconFile=C:\Program Files (x86)\Icons\VLC.ico
IconIndex=0

 

To view all of the icons in a .dll file (like imageres.dll or shell32.dll), I used a program called IconsExtract. The number you need for the IconIndex is shown in brackets.

 

[hardtailstar]

@Arthur

 

Ive did exactly as you said above but the folder still isnt changing :/

 

Any ideas?