Changing the Icon for sites pinned to taskbar in IE9


  1. Chris 1000 Oaks
    Posts : 1
    Windows 7 Professional 64 bit
       New #1

    Changing the Icon for sites pinned to taskbar in IE9


    In IE9 you can pin your favourite websites to the taskbar. If it is a large commercial site it may have its own Icon and that is displayed in the Taskbar. However you are meant to be able to change the icon, so for sites without an icon that just display the MS "e" symbol you can design a specific icon so you can identify the sites easily.

    I thought that to do this you go to the properties window by right clicking on the icon then right clicking on the page name in the popup window. One of the tabs should then allow you to change the icon. I know I sucessfully did this in the beta, but I am not seeing the tab to do it in the full product.

    I must be missing something, but cannot see what.
    Last edited by Chris 1000 Oaks; 20 Apr 2011 at 09:15. Reason: sites misspelled in title
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  3. Brink
    Posts : 72,043
    64-bit Windows 11 Pro for Workstations
       New #2

    Hello Chris, and welcome to Seven Forums.

    I find that creating a website URL shortcut using the steps in OPTION TWO of the tutorial below works best for this.

    Internet Website Shortcut - Create

    Hope this helps,
    Shawn
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  4. azdayton
    Posts : 3
    Windows 7 Professional, 64bit
       New #3

    You can change the icon of pinned websites, but it's a bit of a hassle and a bit technical. Apparently in the pre-release version of IE9 it was simple, but they removed that functionality for reasons I've not been able to discover.
    The pinned shortcuts are located in:

    C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\TaskBar

    Find the shortcut you want to change the icon on, and change it's filename extension from ".website" to ".url" Note that the ".website" extension will not show up in Windows Explorer, so you'll have to use a CMD box or other method to change it.

    When it's renamed, you can right-click the shortcut and change it's icon. When you're done, you'll need to change the filename extension back.
    ---
    Alternately, you can open the shortcut (without changing the extension) in Notepad or other text editor and change the IconFile and/or IconIndex lines manually.
    ---
    Whichever way you do it, the new icon will not appear on the Taskbar until the icons are refreshed, or the icon is unpinned & repinned. I find the easiest way is to right-click and UNPIN then right-click and PIN while in the Taskbar folder mentioned above.
    ---
    Hope this helps someone. Hope even more that M$ fixes this screw-up.

    - Dayton - Fri. 07/15/2011 @ 16:06:34
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  6. studioCJF
    Posts : 14
    XP and Win7
       New #4

    CMD line syntax


    I understand this perfectly but I'm a bit of a novice with the CMD line... What is the proper text to do this? I would be greatful if someone could post the text to temporarily change this to .url and then the text to change it back again to .Website

    Thanks
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  7. solx21
    Posts : 1
    Windows 7 Professional 64x
       New #5

    studioCJF said:
    I understand this perfectly but I'm a bit of a novice with the CMD line... What is the proper text to do this? I would be greatful if someone could post the text to temporarily change this to .url and then the text to change it back again to .Website

    Thanks

    In Command Prompt...

    File and Folder - Rename from Command Prompt

    1. Type: cd "<full file path>" ; then Press Enter (this changes the directory)

    2.Type: Dir ; then Press Enter (this shows all the files in the directory)

    3. Type: RENAME "<current file name and extension>" "<New File Name and extension>" ; then Press Enter

    Hope that helps, it worked for me!
    Last edited by Brink; 20 Mar 2012 at 23:05. Reason: added link for more info
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  8. studioCJF
    Posts : 14
    XP and Win7
       New #6

    @solx21... DUDE! I was so close (forgot the "quotes") other than that I had it right

    BTW to all... Despite all the fiddling around in the CMD line this works perfectly
    Thanks!
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