change icon

[liquidmonkey]

so i'm trying to change the icon of a particular file type.
ie, pdf icon is gone for some reason so i want to put one there.

all i can find on the net is 'open up file types manager' BUT how on earth is that done?

am using win7 x64 home premium.
thanks

 

[TrainableMan]

The icon comes from the program (exe) associated to the file extension.

Go to Control Panel ... Default Programs ... Associations.
Go down the list to .PDF and select it and click change program.
Now whatever icon is stored within the default program you select will be the icon displayed.

 

[davehc]

You said my suggestion on the other forum worked ok for the PDF??
Not clear what else you are attempting but I have just answered there and will repeat:
My procedure, fwiw, is to right click the item and select properties, and then "change icon". If I am not satisified with the shown default selection, then there are choices. You can browse through the (system32) dlls, or select the main source, which is C:\Windows\System32\imageres.dll-
Another alternative is to download one of the free icon packages, such as
Free Icons Web - Icons, Free Icons, Stock Icons, Desktop Icon
to a folder, and browse there for something suitable.

 

[TrainableMan]

Dave, I had the change icon option in XP but I don't seem to have it in W7. If I select properties on, for example "2010_f1040.pdf", I can change the program it opens with but I see no option to change icon.

 

[davehc]

You're right!
I have only in he past changed shortcut icons. I can see now that it all you can change!

 

[liquidmonkey]

thanks for the suggestions and its nice (in a polite way) to see the mods get it confused
either way, its solved now and its back to work....


thanks again!

 

[davehc]

I'm interested. How did you solve it? With a third party program?

 

[liquidmonkey]

actually i just made adobe the default program again and the icons went back to their original state.

i had tried to make FOXIT pdf reader the default but the icons were all messed up.

and yes, there are third party programs if you really want to customize your icons.

 

[Ace]

I know you can do this through the registry. As for when I create my own applications in my programming projects, If I use a dedicated file extension, you'll have to make a registry entry for the file .ico to be displayed for that filetype.

It should be evident that all of that information is stored in the registry though. You just need to find the application's entry for file extensions within your registry hive.

 

[TrainableMan]

Ace, do you have a website you can point us to or can you carefully explain exactly where and how you would assign a different icon via registry?

I think part of the issue is that it would have to actually be a series of icons. If you use small icons in the start menu then it displays the 16x16 icon, set to normal I believe it is still 32x32 and then in windows explorer it might also use 48x48 or 64x64 depending on your settings That may be why it is no longer easy to just "change icon"..

 

[Ace]

That's true, usually the icon for a program is stored in a dll though (in most of the advanced applications), which is how those series of icons get displayed by a program.

I could write something up about it, but it's actually pretty simple. I might make a demo later on.

Update: Found a few programs that are designed to modify those registry entries actually too.
http://www.angelfire.com/biz/rhaminisys/fileasoc.html
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/12383/change-a-file-types-icon-in-windows-7/