How to change a folder icon
Level of difficulty: Easy
There is a certain set of icons that the windows operating system has fixed as the folder icons. These icons are easily recognizable and are specific in nature. Sometimes it happens that we get bored of watching the same age old icons on our desktop. In such a case we can easily change these icons like those of other shortcuts. These icons can be changed from the windows properties and the new icons can be selected either from a list of already existing icons or new icons can also be added. It is very easy to change these icons and the most interesting part is that we can put any picture instead of the icon. There are a few steps that need to be followed. These are very easy to remember and can be followed whenever the user feels the urge to change the icons.
Materials Needed:- For changing the folder icons one needs to be well versed with the working of the Windows operating system. One does not have to be a computer professional or an expert to do this job.
Step 1
First step is to go to the Windows Explorer. This can be done by either double clicking on ‘My Computer’ icon or by going to the ‘Start’ menu and selecting the ‘My Computer’ option. The ‘My Computer’ option is labeled as ‘Computer’ in the Windows Vista operating system.
Step 2
Once the Windows Explorer has opened go to the ‘View’ option in the menu bar. From the drop down menu that opens from the View option select the ‘Options’ tab. An ‘Options’ window will open from which select the ‘Folder Types’ tab and click on the ‘Registered File Types’ option and then click on the ‘Edit’ option.
Step 3
After this click on the ‘Change icon’ button in the new screen that opens. Here one can either select one of their own .ico file that is the file which contains the new icon or can select from the already existing list of icons. There is a file named shell32.dll placed in the 'windows\system32' directory. This file contains all the shortcut icons.
Step 4
From this window when one has selected the icon of his or her choice then one has to press the button ‘OK’ to confirm the changes made. The results of this change are not seen immediately, the system needs to be restarted to see the changes that have been made. So reboot your system and see how wonderful the new desktop screen looks with the icons of your personal choice.