Windows 7: Icon locations

kylehimself · 15 Apr 2010

Hi all,

Hopefully and easy one. Can anybody tell me the location of these icons? Just the regular user folder icons.

I've looked in various folders where icons are normally kept and can't see them

Thanks.

Mellon Head · 15 Apr 2010

If you select change icon for any of these, Windows loads up a dll (I think it's a dll) full of them. You should be able to find the path in the explorer bar. IIRC, the file is in System32\Icons.dll, but I could be wrong. I haven't looked in Seven yet.

Correction. I forgot I was on a Win 7 machine, so I looked it up. This is the correct path for the system and folder icons:

%windir%\explorer.exe

and

C:\Windows\system32\imageres.dll

kylehimself · 15 Apr 2010

Cheers mate. Worked a treat!

Brink · 15 Apr 2010

Hello Kyle,

In addition if you needed to restore or change the user folder icons.

User Folders - Restore Default Icon

and

User Folders - Change Default Icon

Hope this helps,
Shawn

kylehimself · 15 Apr 2010

Appreciate the help buddy. Cheers!

CommonTater · 15 Apr 2010

Quote: Originally Posted by kylehimself

Hi all,

Hopefully and easy one. Can anybody tell me the location of these icons? Just the regular user folder icons.

I've looked in various folders where icons are normally kept and can't see them

Thanks.

The icons themselves are in c:\windows\system32\shell32.dll

If you're looking for a way to extract them and use them for other purposes (eg. websites) you will need a 3rd party tool such as ... IconsExtract which will let you save the icons from all of the windows DLLs as separate ICO files.

kylehimself · 15 Apr 2010

Quote: Originally Posted by CommonTater

The icons themselves are in c:\windows\system32\shell32.dll

If you're looking for a way to extract them and use them for other purposes (eg. websites) you will need a 3rd party tool such as ... IconsExtract which will let you save the icons from all of the windows DLLs as separate ICO files.

For whatever reason those particular icons aren't in c:\windows\system32\shell32.dll they can be found at C:\Windows\system32\imageres.dll as Mellon Head pointed out.

Out of curiosity, for future reference, how would you know what files to look in to locate icons and the like?

CommonTater · 15 Apr 2010

Quote: Originally Posted by kylehimself

Quote: Originally Posted by CommonTater

The icons themselves are in c:\windows\system32\shell32.dll

If you're looking for a way to extract them and use them for other purposes (eg. websites) you will need a 3rd party tool such as ... IconsExtract which will let you save the icons from all of the windows DLLs as separate ICO files.

For whatever reason those particular icons aren't in c:\windows\system32\shell32.dll they can be found at C:\Windows\system32\imageres.dll as Mellon Head pointed out.

Out of curiosity, for future reference, how would you know what files to look in to locate icons and the like?

Well... I absolutely do not suggest you go poking around in the windows system folders without good reason ... But the icon extractor I linked you to will find and save every icon on your system, if you let it....

As for how I would know which files have icons in them... Well that much is in the Windows 7 Software Development Kit's documentation.

Windows 7: Icon locations

Icon locations problems?