Change Desktop's Shortcut's Icon

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hlewton
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Change Desktop's Shortcut's Icon

Post by hlewton »

I am trying to change one of my desktop shortcut’s icon to one of windows standard icons. I tried directing the change icon’s Browse to find %SystemRoot%\System32\shell32.dll. I also found this on the WEB “The majority of those icons are stored inside a dll in location "C:\WINDOWS\system32\imageres.” No luck in finding either of those folders.

A lot of time when I click the browse button it takes me right to the location where this Windows icons are stored but not this time.

After I click Browse what folders do I need to take click to open these icon choices?

Thank you.
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hlewton

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StuartR
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Re: Change Desktop's Shortcut's Icon

Post by StuartR »

Maybe you need to enable browsing of hidden files and folders
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HansV
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Re: Change Desktop's Shortcut's Icon

Post by HansV »

Imageres.dll is a file in C:\Windows\System32. So don't look for a DLL file in C:\Windows\System32\imageres, but look for the file C:\Windows\System32\imageres.dll
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hlewton
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Re: Change Desktop's Shortcut's Icon

Post by hlewton »

Icons.jpg
Thank you both. I already was able to see hidden files, folders, and drives. I still do not see the folder Hans said to look for. I'm sure I am doing something wrong but I am going to attach an attachment so you can see what I see after getting to C:\Windows\System32\ and reaching those folders starting with the letter "i"

So any ideas what I may be doing wrong?
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hlewton

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StuartR
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Re: Change Desktop's Shortcut's Icon

Post by StuartR »

imageres.dll is NOT a folder. It is a file
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HansV
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Re: Change Desktop's Shortcut's Icon

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S3356.png
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hlewton
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Re: Change Desktop's Shortcut's Icon

Post by hlewton »

StuartR wrote:
10 Jun 2020, 14:58
imageres.dll is NOT a folder. It is a file
That did it. Thanks very much.
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hlewton

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Ted Myers
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Re: Change Desktop's Shortcut's Icon

Post by Ted Myers »

Hi hlewton, I change my desktop icons to anything I want by changing the file tag (.jpg or .png) to .icon by using online site to make the change. Convert your image to ICO format - Image converter
If it wasn't for bad luck I'd have NO luck at all.
Windows 11 Home 23H2 Laptop

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hlewton
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Re: Change Desktop's Shortcut's Icon

Post by hlewton »

Ted Myers wrote:
11 Jun 2020, 11:53
Hi hlewton, I change my desktop icons to anything I want by changing the file tag (.jpg or .png) to .icon by using online site to make the change. Convert your image to ICO format - Image converter
Thanks for that but I'm not at all sure what it means. The link says, "Requested page can not be found."
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hlewton

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hlewton
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Re: Change Desktop's Shortcut's Icon

Post by hlewton »

Ted Myers wrote:
11 Jun 2020, 11:53
Hi hlewton, I change my desktop icons to anything I want by changing the file tag (.jpg or .png) to .icon by using online site to make the change. Convert your image to ICO format - Image converter
I did a Google search and found this. Maybe that is what you were telling me. Thanks.
https://onlineconvertfree.com/convert-f ... pg-to-ico/
There also seems to be a free program that cam be downloaded from this site to convert the opposite way. Ever tried that?
Regards,
hlewton

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hlewton
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Re: Change Desktop's Shortcut's Icon

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I used that link above that I found on the NET. Not sure if it is where Ted Myers' post above wanted me to be. I used it to convert a jpeg file to an icon. That part worked great but for some reason something I did messed up the view of my thumbnails. They were all just a generic pictures showing nothing useful at all. I fixed it by this I found on the WEB:
1. Click on the Windows icon to open the Start menu.
2. Locate and click Control Panel.
3. Select System and open Advanced system settings.
4. Navigate to the Advanced tab. ...
5. Proceed to the Visual Effects tab.
6. Make sure to check the Show thumbnails instead of icons option.
7. Click Apply.

6. Make sure to check the Show thumbnails instead of icons option. This option was already checked. I unchecked it, then rechecked it to get this to work, which seemed strange to me.

But my question is, if anyone else ever had this happen and what I could have done to avoid this problem?

Or if you think this may have been the problem. Maybe it wasn't the converter program at all. I found an icon on the WEB. I downloaded what was supposed to be an icon download. I do not remember the extension it actually downloaded but when I tried to open it it said Window could not open it. Do you suppose that caused the thumbnail view to get all messed up?

I ended up downloading the icon I wanted but it had a .png extension. I renamed that to a jepg extension so that conversion program could make an ico file out of it. That worked but still I am curious what may have cause the thumbnails to not show, as they should.

Any thoughts?
Regards,
hlewton

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Re: Change Desktop's Shortcut's Icon

Post by CraigS26 »

IF you dnload an .ico symbol to use with a shortcut OR create an ICO file to use, here's what I just did that works:

I put a .ico medical symbol I dnloaded into the Folder D:\Computer\Desktop Icons
I did - Send to Desktop (create shtcut) - for my Blue Cross Blue Shield folder and had the typical gold folder shtcut BCBS on the desktop;
Rt Clk shtcut/ shtcut tab should be active- Change Icon/ Browsed to D:\Computer\Desktop Icons and dbl-clk'd the Medical ICO symbol/ clk'd OK, then Apply, then OK - BUT I had to do that Browse To, Ok, Apply, Ok series TWICE and then the Med Symbol showed for the BCBS shtcut.

That's working method to incorporate ICO shtcut symbols but What I Don't Know is IF you can edit the imageres.dll File and ADD ICO's to it - Likely not - AND IF you still have more pressing unknowns.
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hlewton
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Re: Change Desktop's Shortcut's Icon

Post by hlewton »

CraigS26 wrote:
11 Jun 2020, 21:14
IF you dnload an .ico symbol to use with a shortcut OR create an ICO file to use, here's what I just did that works:

I put a .ico medical symbol I dnloaded into the Folder D:\Computer\Desktop Icons
I did - Send to Desktop (create shtcut) - for my Blue Cross Blue Shield folder and had the typical gold folder shtcut BCBS on the desktop;
Rt Clk shtcut/ shtcut tab should be active- Change Icon/ Browsed to D:\Computer\Desktop Icons and dbl-clk'd the Medical ICO symbol/ clk'd OK, then Apply, then OK - BUT I had to do that Browse To, Ok, Apply, Ok series TWICE and then the Med Symbol showed for the BCBS shtcut.

That's working method to incorporate ICO shtcut symbols but What I Don't Know is IF you can edit the imageres.dll File and ADD ICO's to it - Likely not - AND IF you still have more pressing unknowns.
I think what I did is a bit different. I am not trying to edit the imageres.dll file. I have entire folder dedicated to nothing but special icons I have found over the years and when I want to change the default icon for a shortcut I can direct the browse to that folder. What I had to do was to convert a downloaded jepg file to an ico file to use it as the shortcut's icon. Somewhere in the process it messed up my view settings for that icon folder and anywhere else thumbnails were visible.

I do have it corrected now but was just wondering what I may have done to mess it up.

Thanks for your reply.
Regards,
hlewton

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Ted Myers
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Re: Change Desktop's Shortcut's Icon

Post by Ted Myers »

hlewton wrote:
11 Jun 2020, 12:51
Ted Myers wrote:
11 Jun 2020, 11:53
Hi hlewton, I change my desktop icons to anything I want by changing the file tag (.jpg or .png) to .icon by using online site to make the change. Convert your image to ICO format - Image converter
I did a Google search and found this. Maybe that is what you were telling me. Thanks.
https://onlineconvertfree.com/convert-f ... pg-to-ico/
There also seems to be a free program that cam be downloaded from this site to convert the opposite way. Ever tried that?
I can't explain exactly how I got my converted pic to how I wanted it. It's a case of 'if at first you don't succeed' etc.
I have never tried to convert a .icon to any thing else, I just open it in Paint then save as .png or .jpg.
If it wasn't for bad luck I'd have NO luck at all.
Windows 11 Home 23H2 Laptop

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hlewton
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Re: Change Desktop's Shortcut's Icon

Post by hlewton »

Ted Myers wrote:
12 Jun 2020, 08:30
I can't explain exactly how I got my converted pic to how I wanted it. It's a case of 'if at first you don't succeed' etc.
I have never tried to convert a .icon to any thing else, I just open it in Paint then save as .png or .jpg.
Thanks. I did try using Paint but it didn't have an "ico" format to save a photo to. With the help of what you were saying in your link I did finally manage to get the end result I needed.
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hlewton

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Ted Myers
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Re: Change Desktop's Shortcut's Icon

Post by Ted Myers »

Its the .ico I change to .png & .jpg in paint.
If it wasn't for bad luck I'd have NO luck at all.
Windows 11 Home 23H2 Laptop

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hlewton
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Re: Change Desktop's Shortcut's Icon

Post by hlewton »

Ted Myers wrote:
12 Jun 2020, 15:05
Its the .ico I change to .png & .jpg in paint.
Yep I wanted it the other way around.
Regards,
hlewton

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Ted Myers
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Re: Change Desktop's Shortcut's Icon

Post by Ted Myers »

hlewton wrote:
12 Jun 2020, 16:11
Ted Myers wrote:
12 Jun 2020, 15:05
Its the .ico I change to .png & .jpg in paint.
Yep I wanted it the other way around.
That can only be done online AFAIA
If it wasn't for bad luck I'd have NO luck at all.
Windows 11 Home 23H2 Laptop

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Re: Change Desktop's Shortcut's Icon

Post by ChrisGreaves »

HansV wrote:
10 Jun 2020, 14:35
Imageres.dll is a file in C:\Windows\System32. So don't look for a DLL file in C:\Windows\System32\imageres, but look for the file C:\Windows\System32\imageres.dll
Thanks Hans. I was wondering where they had got to.
The Win10 set seems to be different from the Win7 set. There is some overlap.
Cheers
Chris
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jolas
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Re: Change Desktop's Shortcut's Icon

Post by jolas »

Here is a quick way to change desktop icon to the ones available to windows.
ChangeShortcutIconm.jpg
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