Solved assigning a icon to a file type in W7 64 bit?

[dazco]

I found an app that allows you to easily do this because i wanted to change mp3 files to thier own icon and have each file type have thier own. At least as far as the most commonly used meadi file types like wav, avi, mp3, etc. Unfortunately, while the app i downloaded works, if i assign a certain icon to say mp3 files, all media files get the same icon. Is this something i can't change in 7 unlike XP and previous windows where wavs mp3s and avi's all had thier own icons? Is there a way to do this?

 

[Brink]

Hello Dazco,

You could use the tutorial below to change the icon used for any single file extension.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/57455-file-extension-icon-change-default-icon.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[dazco]

Thanks, but for some reason it didn't work. I used the 64 bit version of that icon viewer app, i am quite familiar with editing the registry so i didn't go to the wrong place etc. Used the same icon library dll as was already in the modify window so all i had to change was the icon number. And yes, i left the dash there. But i clicked ok, restarted the pc and still the icon remains as before. Open regedit and the number i used is still there but nothing has changed as far as the icon shown for mp3 files.

 

[Brink]

Did you try both step 3 and 4 incase one may work while the other didn't?

 

[dazco]

I DO have mp3's associated with a different player than default. But when i look at step 4 I don't understand what it mean. The instructions seem poorly explained, or else maybe i'm just spacing, i dunno. But next to Progid the data is "Applications\mplayerc.exe", or the player i have mp3's associated with. I wasn't sure what to do, but i tried to change that to what it shows in the tutorial regardless of whether that was juts an example or what top see what happens, but it give an error and won't accept it.

 

[Brink]

Dazco,

I added OPTION ONE to the tutorial that should be able to change the icon for you now.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/57455-file-extension-icon-change-default-icon.html

 

[dazco]

I'm confused because when i click the link it says "option 2".

EDIT: i tried that filetypes man but like the first app i tried that i found myself before i posted here, it changes all files associated with a given program to the same icon. In other words, i have media player classic associated to many in fact i think ALL media files, audio or video. So if i change mp3's icon, all media files change to that. I want to have different icons for each file type like in XP.

 

[Brink]

The program you used to open .mp3 file with must have changed something. When I use the program FileTypesMan in Option One to change the icon of my .mp3 files, it only changes it for that file extension and no other file extension.

 

[dazco]

I did find a option in it that has to do with this, and i got it to work to some degree. What i mean by that is i got avi and mp3 to use different icons, but i'm now having a lot of wierd things happening when i try and get the file types associated with certain icons. Tried for example to give AVI a certain video style icon and it worked with one, but the other gave it a blank white icon. Well, anyways it was like you said in the program options. Thanks, good call.

Got the weirdness sorted, so its all good now. thanks much for the help !

 

[Brink]

That's great news Dazco. I'm happy to hear that you got it sorted.

 

[dazco]

Looks like i was wrong. It's ok, but avi's will not accept an icon of my choice. It shows one that isn't what i picked, but at least it's different than other files. But still got work to do here.....never ends does it?

 

[Brink]

Nope, there's always some mystery that needs digging into.

If you are using a custom icon, be sure that you are using a 256x256 pixel icon, and that you have it saved in a location that everyone has access to. For example, in one of the C:\Users\Public folders.

 

[dazco]

No custom ones. But strange things have been happening when i try and assign icons to a file type. I have it good enough now, IE all video files have the same icon. Not exactly what i wanted but it'll do. Audio have different icons, but not all have the icon i want because like i said some just don't take. I can pick a certain icon but the one thats currently assigned won't budge.

 

[Brink]

I must admit that I'm not sure why it's not changing for you.

 

[dazco]

I got it all working pretty much as i'd hoped. I found an app that shows all the icons within all the files that have them in a given folder. So i was able to generate a huge window showing every icon in all the dll's in the sys32 folder. I then found the icons i REALLY wanted in the first place, the ones that XP uses. They are in the quartz.dll file. And for whatever reason, those DO take. Not sure why but i was able to use all of those. So it's all good now.

 

[Brink]

Interesting. I'm glad to hear that it's all good now.

 

[dsperber]

I must admit that I'm not sure why it's not changing for you.

Just discovered this FilesTypeMan utility today. I was looking for a way to set a file type icon for "epub", which is associated with Adobe Digital Editions. For some reason although the program is correctly set by the Adobe installation to be the default for double-click on an ".epub" file, and all program functionality is correct and works perfectly, there doesn't seem to be a proper file type icon inside the .EXE and the generic Windows file type icon is shown.

Anyway, nowhere did I see any mention of logging off and then logging on, after using FilesTypeMan to make the change for the default icon. When I completed using this utility to change the default icon, there still was no change yet when using Explorer.

Only after I logged off and then back on (or, could have re-booted as well) did the newly set default icon now appear properly. Perhaps this is why some users don't see a change in default icon right away... unless they happen to re-boot maybe. Then, magically, they have the new icon and it seems to have happened on its own. In reality, the need to re-boot or log off/on in order to effect that registry change which the utility is actually performing.

Anyway, NirSoft is the same company that offers SearchMyFiles, so this is the second program from them that I've now parked into my "arsenal" of nifty utilities.

 

[smeghead]

This was happening to me too. Whenever I tried to change the icon for a file type, ALL the icons that file type would open with changed too. ALL mp3 files, avi files and wav files I had selected to open with Media Player Classic all had to have the same icon.

Then I discovered Creative Element Power Tools' File Type Doctor program. This lets you "lock" a file type so that once you've changed it, it will stay changed forever, no matter what.

Give it a go if you like, there's a shareware version available, which is free for about a month, but you have to pay for the full one. Even if you uninstall it, once the time limit is up any locked and changed file type stays locked!!

 

[JukeboxJezabel]

This might be a little late but at sourceforge there is a really nice right click explorer utility called 'types'.

From their site:

Types is a simple configuration utility that allows you to manage program associations, icons, context menus and other properties of various file types in Windows.