This entry was posted on Saturday, April 5th, 2008 at 1:51 pm and is filed under Customize Windows Xp, Microsoft, PC, Technology, Windows XP. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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April 5, 2008 at 2:02 pm |
hahah. Wow. Excellent Job!
So much for Microsofts: ‘The default XP folder icon cannot be changed’ in their help section.
Awesome, been looking for something like this for ages!
April 5, 2008 at 5:49 pm |
excelent work.
finaly something like this has been found. u r awesome!
Vishal Pinoshii
April 13, 2008 at 5:17 am |
Goodbye WindowsBlinds!
April 28, 2008 at 1:35 am |
I need help…. In step 5 and 6, where do you find the Vista folder icons?
please e-mail me!!!
April 28, 2008 at 7:43 am |
@ Alex: I’ve replied to your question via email as requested.
@Everyone else: Thanks for your kind words, hope Ive helped!
Cheers,
KaneBT
May 7, 2008 at 4:40 pm |
Help please.
I searched the whole internet and nothing. Maybe you can help?
I want to remove 2 buttons (”Add Favorite” and “Organize Favorites”)
from Favorites panel (Ctrl+I in any WE window and you will see it”), because I use this bar for quick access to favorite FOLDERS without opening new windows, and this is awesome “not supose to be there feature”. So do you know in which dll are these buttons (class is toolbarwindow32)?
If someone don’t use IE this WE bar is great, BUT the freakin’ buttons … If you can help e-mail me or write an article about this very useful XP feature because many people are not aware of it at all.
May 8, 2008 at 9:25 am |
It might be just me, but the link to the TweakUI on this page is broken, i had to google search “tweakUI” and get it from the microsoft site. and thanks again for this the awesome crack!
May 8, 2008 at 10:23 am |
Thanks machusalzy123!
The link seems to work fine for me, Ill update it anyway..
Thanks!
May 25, 2008 at 6:22 pm |
Hi,
Great job! Thanks a lot!!
Just one problem – Although I changed the “My Pictures” Icon and the “My Documents” Icon, they will not change! And there isn’t an option to manually change it.
Why is that? is it a different kind of folder? Is there anyway to change those as well??
Thanks!
June 30, 2008 at 4:24 pm |
Iv done everything in the instructions but it has not change anything plz help!
July 1, 2008 at 4:09 am |
may need to leave a link for those amoung us running 32bit systems in regards to tweakUI.
July 3, 2008 at 11:51 am |
mbc3ne
July 5, 2008 at 3:35 am |
yes the icons changed
its looking quit cool
thanks bro
i appreciate your job
brilliant jod
July 9, 2008 at 4:20 pm |
i’ve completed all the steps but it didn’t changed anything ….
July 9, 2008 at 4:53 pm |
ok … never mind my last comment … i made it work ( i was changing the SHELL.dll file instead of Shel32.dll ) :d
August 17, 2008 at 3:04 am |
great job….
i will try this tonight
August 23, 2008 at 5:22 am |
Thanks guys!
@ Sarah: To change the my documents, my music, my pictures etc, you must edit the mydocs.dll file in system32.
follow the same procedure.
Cheers!
kaneBT
August 28, 2008 at 1:29 pm |
Thanks, great job
)
August 29, 2008 at 9:30 pm |
I couldn’t get it to work… when I tried to navigate to the “New Icon” I couldn’t find any anywhere. What I’m trying to do is simple: Revert what Adobe Photoshop did. When I loaded Photoshop, it replaced all of my “closed folder” icons with “thumbnail” icons. Now everytime I open Explorer, every single folder has the thumbnail. It’s not that I loved the plain yellow, but it’s infinitely less “busy” than scores of thumbnails.
September 2, 2008 at 3:23 pm |
“Navigate to the new icon (it should be close to the same size as the old one) and press open.”
what does it mean i couldnt find any where…….. plz heilp me in sorting out these problem
September 2, 2008 at 3:37 pm |
“Navigate to the new icon” where to navigate plz help me in sorting out this problem ,4 of friends r having same problem with step 6 , email me that solutin of step 6
i m waiting for that buddy
September 9, 2008 at 6:26 pm |
wow reshacker, havent used this in a while… change ur theme this one sucks i cant read shit.
open taskmanager – ctrl+shift+esc – then kill explorer.exe… then hit file-run and type “explorer” (no quotes) hit enter… fixed. no need to freakin reboot
September 16, 2008 at 8:05 am |
My resource Hck tells me “out of resource”………….
and after a restart it reverts back to the old icons
September 16, 2008 at 10:19 am |
got it after a long winded road………….
and ya it does need a lil more knowledge of systems…..
for all those ppl who couldnt do it….mail me …
September 22, 2008 at 8:30 pm |
I get the same “out of resource” error, with the same effect……
Any clues as to what to do, habe tried several things but no different
September 23, 2008 at 11:06 am |
Hey Everyone!
@Prem: By navigate to new icon, I mean navigate to the icon you want to use instead. It must be a .ico file, you’ll easily find one with a google search. Then just download it, put it in a PERMANENT folder, and navigate to it with reshack!
@kah: Yes, thats faster but I’ve tried to make the instructions as easy as possible for less advanced users.
@Prototype2: This sounds very strange. ?? Could you post your answer here? Thanks!
@Slughorn: Im sorry, Ive never encountered this error. :S My advice would be to contact Prototype2.
Thanks Guys!
KaneBT
September 24, 2008 at 6:47 am |
@@@@@My resource Hck tells me “out of resource”………….
and after a restart it reverts back to the old icons@@@@@@
your icon has too many variations built in to it. you can only use 48×48 32×32 16×16 icons
256×256 resolution wont work at the moment for system icons , thats why your getting a resource error.
try axialis icon workshop software and you will see what i mean .
good luck.
October 7, 2008 at 9:32 am |
awesome!works great…1 problem…resource hacker reads icons only fom .dlls or .exe,
i used game maker 7.0 to embed 32×32 icons….du u have a software to embed icons(256×256or128×128) into .exe or.dll???
but u rock…it works great only when i veiw in thumbnail mode,it looks weird…but on the whole…AWESOME!
October 8, 2008 at 6:06 am |
it works only for 128×128 icons…
November 4, 2008 at 4:02 am |
HELP!!!
I tried this process and messed something up along the way so that many aspects of my appearance is messed up.
After using the resource hacker process clicked “save as” and saved to my desktop.
I then finished the process and used the saved file as my replacement file in the replacer.
After restarting my computer…ALL of my icons are messed up and even my start menu has changed appearance.
Do you have any suggestion about how to get back to normal?
Anything would help…
Thanks
November 4, 2008 at 11:18 pm |
Hey, been playing with this an got my windows folders looking ace, thanks for the tips.
@lyle thumbnails need to be refreshed to show changes. Right clock on thumbnail and select Refresh Thumbnail.
Hope this helps someone, as ur replies have helped me!
Cheers
November 10, 2008 at 2:46 am |
Hey dude, that’s aswome! really nice work.. thx a lot!!!
November 15, 2008 at 12:52 pm |
I need help, I screwed something up. I changed the File Folder icon manually from control panel, I opened folder settings from there and opened up the filetypes tab. I changed the icon for ”File Folder”, but after I realized it can’t be changed, but, along with trying to change the icon, I screwed something up with the File Folders actions. My default folders don’t open anymore… they open up with VLC Media Player, and I can’t change the actions for the folders… What can I do.
December 24, 2008 at 12:55 pm |
Nice tips dude! thxs……..
January 1, 2009 at 11:56 pm |
hello…
so far, so good except for a minor(ish) detail…
when i hit ctrl+O… i can see the new folder icons i replaced the ugly yellow ones with. when i’m on my desktop however, they’re still the old yellow folders. it seems that if it’s anywhere the “biggest” icon would be used, they’re still the default. when the “small” icons would be used, the new ones are seen. am i making sense? please let me know what you think about this…….. otherwise, i’m so pleased….. thank you!!!!
January 1, 2009 at 11:57 pm |
and happy new year!!!!
January 4, 2009 at 11:40 am |
happy new year. ^^
I’m having some trouble with the TweakUI.exe, the link you gave is broken. @____@
I’d be very grateful if you could e-mail me with TweakUI as an attachment… thanks.
January 7, 2009 at 9:19 am |
for those having problems with tweakui for windows, the link is http://download.microsoft.com/download/f/c/a/fca6767b-9ed9-45a6-b352-839afb2a2679/TweakUiPowertoySetup.exe
Anyway, thanks for the great workaround
It works 
February 3, 2009 at 9:55 am |
i have done the instructions as listed.
the icon still does not display in windows explorer.
i did this sometime ago and i actually got it to work after many frustrations, but i dont remember what i did.
but….. i do see the icon i changed it to in any open/save dialog. and even in the shell32.dll box when i go to set a custom icon. but my icon still does not show in winblows explorer. only the default yellow icon. wth lol
February 3, 2009 at 9:57 am |
oh, and it also shows my custom icon as the preview in the customize tab in the folder properties dialog.
February 22, 2009 at 5:43 am |
Thanks so much I have been looking for something like this for a long time no more changing folder one by one (yeah I am that nutty). Thanks I have a bunch of icons and I plan on making my own having this only inspires me to get off my butt. Thanks
February 28, 2009 at 9:45 pm |
Guys, can someone tell me where to find good icons (free!) which I can use to replace the ugly default yellow folder icons
March 1, 2009 at 1:05 am |
Hi,
Thanks guys!
@Partha: The vista folder icon is really nice! You can get it free from here (download the whole pack, there’s lots of other nice icons too!):
http://kanebt.wordpress.com/2008/04/06/real-vista-icons-extracted-for-xp/
Thanks!
KaneBT
March 17, 2009 at 6:43 pm |
hi,
This is great technique but doesn’t worked for me, just because ResHacker doesn’t accept the thirdparty icon file. It doesn’t show the ICON preview so unable to change that.
I’ve used HyperPro Iconset from vistaicon.com
Can you tell me the solution???
Thanks
March 18, 2009 at 10:27 am |
Hey,
@Neo: I’ve tried to find the iconset you mention, but it doesn’t seem to exist and vistaicon.com won’t load a page for me. However, I would guess that the icon file you are using is corrupt, or you aren’t using a proper ‘.ico’ file. The icon you use MUST be in the .ico format, not in a compressed icon set which i believe may be what you downloaded. Try another icon file and see if it works:)
Thanks!
KaneBT
March 19, 2009 at 6:58 pm |
@KaneBT:
Dude, the link http://kanebt.wordpress.com/2008/04/06/real-vista-icons-extracted-for-xp/ which you had given for downloads, its all in PNG format. Nothing in ICO format. How did you use them??? Also, do you have any link from where I can download ICO files for XP to make it look like Vista to an extent??? I have tried many ICOs but all I get is that “out of resource” crap…
March 24, 2009 at 3:07 pm |
Sir!
can you please mail me an answer…
ive had problems about it…
it didnt change anything…
okei, 1st try, the desktop was messed up(as anticipated in your guide), but the icon changed into unidentified file icon…
2nd, nothing happend when i deleted the shell32 in the desktop.
3rd, i tried it again…
but still, nothing…
i really wanna change my Windows… T_T
March 24, 2009 at 3:12 pm |
Sir!
can you please mail me an answer…
ive had problems about it…
it didnt change anything…
okei, 1st try, the desktop was messed up(as anticipated in your guide), but the icon changed into unidentified file icon…
2nd, nothing happend when i deleted the shell32 in the desktop.
3rd, i tried it again…
but still, nothing…
i really wanna change my Windows… T_T
March 25, 2009 at 5:17 pm |
to be more specific,
it says, “access denied”, whenever i try to replace the new icon.
how sad.
April 20, 2009 at 5:50 am |
That is Sooooooooooo cool, thanks a lot ….. I also change all the other default icons …..
http://images.orkut.com/orkut/photos/OgAAAOVXq63-okcOCKZIHQjJvFgPT3796rb_qQi_D9rD3ICI4OjSgOg7OltMvJazq8gvaSWxQViwpnFQ6LgAX_JL4TUAm1T1UDTJaXSVqtgmgh3BMWgVNj56wHtn.jpg
http://images.orkut.com/orkut/photos/OgAAAG2Y6zVth0YyEnSpUS-bXASP4EBvt_o2Z-Bk_mtXlKEP-MH8JvRQL1HGkjGQLMd9dQs25zTMxgb_b1j2EYuoTd4Am1T1ULNSokRZZ6Qb2T04hKVkSTCaIioq.jpg
April 22, 2009 at 2:45 am |
I have a small problem, this thing worked 4 a few days, and then i dont know how,the default Icons are back !! …….. PLZ PLZ HELP !!
June 20, 2009 at 10:19 pm |
simply edit %SystemRoot%\system32\SHELL32.dll using reshacker tool and replace it with orginal file(using replacer)