Windows 7: Changing default folder icons completely - How to?

I have 19 blue Vista icons for the basic folders like Documents, Links, Empty Folder and Saved Games, as well as programs like WMP, Windows Mail, and so on.
Most of my icons have been changed with Folderico already, but doing it that way takes a long time. Obviously new folders will still look the same, so whenever I make a new one I have to waste time changing that one too. IconPackager's no good since the icons I want to use are all separate .ico files.
I haven't tried regedit yet because I'm not 100% sure what to do and I'm afraid that I'm going to mess something up, but I don't see any other alternatives right now.


So basically what I need to know is;
How do I change the icons permanently using either regedit* or any software that changes all icons correctly (ex: replacing Windows 7 Empty Folder icon with blue Vista Empty Folder icon for every single empty folder found)?



*I need a step-by-step guide, I'm basically like a five year old when it comes to this.

Welcome to the Seven Forums
You'll find those icons in imageres.dll and with you using 64-bit it will be in both C:\Windows\System32 and C:\Windows\SysWOW64
This tutorial will show you how to change folder icons Folder Icon - Change Default Icon you will need to do basically the same thing for like your Documents, Links, Saved Games etc. all those icons are in the imageres.dll also. HINT: put copies of the imageres.dll on your desktop and modify them to not touch the originals at this time.

After you have modified the .dll you will need to Take Ownership, give yourself Permission, Rename(The original one from imageres.dll to imageres.bak.dll) and Replace imageres.dll with the one you modified look at Post #6 of this thread and it will show you how to do that Basic Networking Information
After you have done this you will need to Icon Cache - Rebuild

Let me know if you need further advice.
Jerry

Nice tutorial Bongo. Thanks.

You're welcome