Summary: Creating a shortcut is easy and there's an interface for changing the icon. Though not obvious, there's a large selection of icons to choose from.
I created a shortcut for the "Safely Remove Hardware" utility, but now I want to use a different icon for it. How?
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Changing the icon for a desktop shortcut is really easy. Where most people trip up is finding an icon to choose from. The good news is that there's a huge collection of icons already in Windows ready for your use, if you know where to look.
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If you've created a substitute safely remove hardware icon on your desktop, from my previous article on the subject, you probably have something that looks like this:
That would be the default icon for the shortcut.
To change the icon of this or almost any desktop shortcut, right click on the shortcut and click on Properties:
Click on Change Icon...:
This is where things get interesting. You'll see that exactly one icon is presented for you to choose from. That icon is actually extracted from the shortcut target, in this case rundll.exe. But using the Browse... button we can select a different file to get the shortcut from:
Note that I've selected shell32.dll, or more completely "C:\Windows\System32\shell32.dll". Press OK, and the Change Icon dialog suddenly has many icons to choose from:
On my system I have something like 234 icons to choose from. After selecting one and OKing my way out, my desktop shortcut now looks like this:
Naturally you can select other files containing icons including most .exe and .dll files, as well as .ico icon files. However with 200+ icons to choose from in shell32.dll it's rare that I need to look anywhere else for something appropriate.
Related:
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Ask Leo! - Safely Remove Hardware: where did the icon go? How do I safely remove hardware without it?
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Ask Leo! - Can I make a desktop icon for a web page shortcut?
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Ask Leo! - How can I get Windows Explorer to default to open on a directory of my choosing?
Article C3096 - July 25, 2007
I tried to change the icon of an HTML desktop shortcut, but the tabs were missing to make this change. What do I do now?
Posted by: Patricia Whitworth at July 28, 2007 7:00 AMLeo, thanks for the additional places to look for icons. Here is what I did and anyone please feel free to advise if this is not a good idea.
Many items on the All Programs list had the plain generic folder icon. It looked like a sea of vanilla folders. Made a new folder on the Desktop (or in My Documents) to store the more descriptive icons that correspond to each program. Found these in the program files. Select and copy a file showing its icon (not a shortcut icon) into the new folder. Icon may copy with the .exe or another suffix. Change the suffix of the copied icon to .ico.
Then, in All Programs, to change the icon of a program, right click it, choose properties, customize, change icon. Browse to your folder; open, select the icon, choose apply, OK, etc. One caution, clicking "restore default" changed all the icons on All Programs back to the plain vanilla folders. (Fortunately was able to use System Restore to fix this.)
Posted by: Bonita Flora at October 15, 2007 6:36 PMIn XP, I am locked out of changing shortcut deshtop icons. Even the original web icons are gone, and I just have the generic MS Dos icon, that I cannot change. Please help me. Thanks.
Posted by: Sandy Bloom at February 6, 2008 11:30 AMBTW, the original Windows Icons (Recycle, Outlook etc) are intact.
Posted by: Sandy Bloom at February 6, 2008 11:31 AMHi,
Posted by: Rose Mary at February 7, 2008 8:32 PMThis is what's happening: I have some shockwave games shortcuts on my desktop and they are now blank (the little box white inside with the icon "arrow" showing. I couldnt' access the game, it says the "the shortcut.exe is missing" and it gave me the option to find it myself.
I restarted the computer and the icons are now showing thru with the proper names but once again, I click on them and gives me the same message. (does that make sense to you?) I can't access any of my games.... help!!
Read the article and It is very clear and concise. However I have had a problem with IE7 in that I cannot change the icon of a shortcut. I follow the normal procedure to do so, and having chosen the icon it appears in the properties box, but when I click apply the icon on the screen just flickers and reverts to the windows default shortcut icon. I see that this is a common problem in IE7, but I have yet to see a solution
Posted by: David Heenan at November 6, 2008 8:47 AMArticle dated Nov. 6th, 2008 regarding changing icons on the desktop with IE7, same problem what is the fix. Searched the Web and no one has published one that I could find that works. Does anyone have a fix.
Posted by: Richard Brummundt at January 22, 2009 5:07 PMI'm attempting to change a DOS program shortcut icon in Vista Home. When I click on the desktop shortcut Icon and select Properties I get a General Tab & Program Tab plus several other Tabs. The Program Tab Window has a [Change Icon] button following your instructions changes the Icon in the Program Window but not in the General Tab Window or the Desktop Icon? Note:The Dos program works normally when the the desktop icon is selected.
Posted by: R Brown at February 8, 2009 10:22 PMmy head's spinning... since with Vista I can't find a way to locate original program logo icons
Posted by: tom hodge at March 11, 2009 8:23 AM(such as Yahoo, AltaVista, GMail, etc. and if I pick a generic icon from Billy Gates' choices, that generic icon disappears after I use it once, and it reverts back to the default pagey looking one. Help!
I am a Insurance Agent and have saved my the companies I use web site shortcuts to my desktop but would like to change the icons to quicker reconize my choices! I have gone to change icon tab and click "apply" but I get a shortcut message problem error, how can I fix this issue.
Posted by: Angie at October 22, 2009 12:20 PM