Change the look of desktop folders..?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Frank
  • Start date Start date
F

Frank

How can I change the look of new folders I've created on my desktop,
such as making them look like a particular icon or picture?
You know, like you can in XP.
Is it possible?
THX
Frank
 
Yes, you can do this in Win 2000. Here are some insructions I picked up
somewhere, possbily from this very newsgroup.

This is an example using a file (shell32.dll) that is certain to be on
your computer. Following the steps will change a "regular" folder icon
from a plain tan folder icon into a Globe icon. Also included is
information on how to use your own IconFile, since Windows does not ship
with any colored folder icons.

- Create a New Folder
- Click Start > Run, type CMD, and in the command windows, type
attrib +s {FolderName}
or
Right-click on the New Folder, choose Properties, in the Attributes
section click Read-only, click Apply, click OK to Apply Changes to
this Folder only
- Right-click in the file list control area of the folder in question
and choose New > Text Document
- Double-click New Text Document and add the following three lines:

[.ShellClassInfo]
IconFile=C:\WINNT\system32\shell32.dll
IconIndex=13

- Choose File > Save As... and in the File name box type the following
name, with the double-quotes: "desktop.ini"

- Click Save, and then close desktop.ini. You can delete "New Text
Document"

- Refresh Explorer using the F5 key. You may need to do this several
times before the new icon displays. And if the icon has not changed
after 4 or 5 refreshes, close all running instances of Explorer, and
then open Explorer.

To customize the folder icon using your own icon follow these rules to
edit the values in your desktop.ini.

IconFile = The file name that contains the icon to show for the folder. It
can be an ICO or a BMP file, as well as EXE or DLL file that contain
icons. You must use the fully qualified path unless the IconFile is in
the same folder as the desktop.ini file.

IconIndex = The index of the icon in the file just specified. Set it to
zero if you are using an ICO or BMP file. If you are loading the icon from
a file that contains multiple icons, such as EXEs or DLLs, use the ordinal
0-based position of the icon within the file. In the above example, we
used an icon in shell32.dll with an ordinal 0-based position of 13.
 
Gary said:
Yes, you can do this in Win 2000. Here are some insructions I picked up
somewhere, possbily from this very newsgroup.

This is an example using a file (shell32.dll) that is certain to be on
your computer. Following the steps will change a "regular" folder icon
from a plain tan folder icon into a Globe icon. Also included is
information on how to use your own IconFile, since Windows does not ship
with any colored folder icons.

- Create a New Folder
- Click Start > Run, type CMD, and in the command windows, type
attrib +s {FolderName}
or
Right-click on the New Folder, choose Properties, in the Attributes
section click Read-only, click Apply, click OK to Apply Changes to
this Folder only
- Right-click in the file list control area of the folder in question
and choose New > Text Document
- Double-click New Text Document and add the following three lines:

[.ShellClassInfo]
IconFile=C:\WINNT\system32\shell32.dll
IconIndex=13

- Choose File > Save As... and in the File name box type the following
name, with the double-quotes: "desktop.ini"

- Click Save, and then close desktop.ini. You can delete "New Text
Document"

- Refresh Explorer using the F5 key. You may need to do this several
times before the new icon displays. And if the icon has not changed
after 4 or 5 refreshes, close all running instances of Explorer, and
then open Explorer.

To customize the folder icon using your own icon follow these rules to
edit the values in your desktop.ini.

IconFile = The file name that contains the icon to show for the folder. It
can be an ICO or a BMP file, as well as EXE or DLL file that contain
icons. You must use the fully qualified path unless the IconFile is in
the same folder as the desktop.ini file.

IconIndex = The index of the icon in the file just specified. Set it to
zero if you are using an ICO or BMP file. If you are loading the icon from
a file that contains multiple icons, such as EXEs or DLLs, use the ordinal
0-based position of the icon within the file. In the above example, we
used an icon in shell32.dll with an ordinal 0-based position of 13.


Frank said:
How can I change the look of new folders I've created on my desktop,
such as making them look like a particular icon or picture?
You know, like you can in XP.
Is it possible?
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Whoa...! That's really a long way around the horn.
Here's what I did. After I created the new folder on my desktop and
filled it up with whatever I wanted, I then dragged it onto C and then
right clicked and sent a shortcut back to my desktop. Then I right
clicked on the desktop folder go to properties and voila!..change icon
is now available.
Thanks for the time it took you to post.
Frank
 
Frank said:
Whoa...! That's really a long way around the horn.
Here's what I did. After I created the new folder on my desktop and
filled it up with whatever I wanted, I then dragged it onto C and then
right clicked and sent a shortcut back to my desktop. Then I right
clicked on the desktop folder go to properties and voila!..change icon
is now available.
Click to expand...

Oaky, I misunderstood your original post. The procedure I described will
change the icon associated with the folder itself, whereever it may be
located, and will be the default icon assigned when a shortcut to the
folder is created. Of course when you're using a shortcut, the icon
assignment mechanism is always available under Properties.
 
Gary said:
Oaky, I misunderstood your original post. The procedure I described will
change the icon associated with the folder itself, whereever it may be
located, and will be the default icon assigned when a shortcut to the
folder is created. Of course when you're using a shortcut, the icon
assignment mechanism is always available under Properties.
Click to expand...
Yep!
Frank
 
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