Windows 7: How Do I Change Icons Using Restorator?

Title says it all. I've always heard people say use Restorator (or another similar program) to manually change your icons, but not one ever mentions the specific steps about how to do it. Can someone please help me by giving the specific steps?

And yes, in case you're wondering, I am a total noob when it comes to manually editing system files.

Hi Klaw117

I'll assume you want to change the embedded icon in an application.
For example, if you wanted to change CCleaner's icon to something a bit nicer, you would navigate to %programfiles%\ccleaner, open CCleaner.exe with Restorator.
In the left hand pane, expand Icon, right click the icon you wish to change and choose Assign > Assign to...
Choose your prefered .ico image, save & close restorator.



Please note that sometimes the icons will not refresh straight away. Delete the thumbnail cache, and see here.

Well, actually I meant changing the default icons and replacing them with, for example, Mr. Grim's Black Glass icon pack.

Well, in that case, open files like shell32.dll, imageres.dll and do the same thing i posted above.
I highly recommend creating backup copies of any files you intend on changing before you even consider opening them with restorator.

All right, thanks. I'm guessing this could take a while though, since I have to manually edit many files.

Since you helped, I'm giving you rep.

Ok, problem here...

I opened Restorator as an admin, I opened imageres.dll and shell32.dll and did all the "assign to" stuff to the icons that had to be changed, but when I save and close it, nothing happens, even after restarting. If no one has a solution for this, then I'm giving up, since this is kind of becoming a pain.

By the way, if anyone's curious, I'm trying to replace the default icons with Mr. Grim's Blue Full Glass Icon Set.

Hi Klaw117
You may need to temporarily disable UAC to be able to save those files.

As far as installing MR GRiM's icon pack goes. See the first post in this thread.
Hope this helps

I'll try that, thanks.

Plus, I saw that link already. The problem is, the set of icons I got are from his personal site, meaning it has no installer. I'm doing everything manually.

Doing it manually can be difficult because for starters the dll's you are changing are already in use so when you save it will actually make a file and put a 1 on the end of it.

If you do manage to save the dll you will not see any changes straight away and you will need to clear the icon cache and do a restart before they will take effect.

The way I used to do all of my editing before Generator made the installer was to boot into a second OS and that way none of the files were in use and could easily be replaced and also delete the icon cache at the same time and boot back into Windows 7 and all the changes were aplied.

If you go to my site at Virtual Customs you can download all of my icons with installers which makes the job a lot less of a headache.

Link is in my sig.

Thanks for the suggestion Mr. Grim, but those installers are for build 7600. I'm still on build 7100, since I'm not getting Windows 7 until Christmas from my brother. I think I'll just wait until I have the retail version (I'm guessing the build 7600 installers will work on the retail version).