Icon customization problem

[nick12bnack]

Hi, new to the forums but have used several tutorials in the past to fix or improve my windows 7 professional 64 bit, pretty comfortable with windows 7 being a student tech at college

my problem is I recently decided to change my theme as well as change my icons through "resource hacker" in that order, with my theme, i replaced the "explorerframe.dll" and "explorer.exe" as well as putting the theme into themes folder, after that I modified the imageres.dll file with a few custom icons, now is the confusing part, I modified the imageres file in the system 32 folder, but then noticed there was one is Syswow64 folder so i modified that one as well, but when i restarted my computer the icons didn't show even though when I would pull up the imageres.dll file it would show the custom icons, but what does show the icons correctly is starting a duplicate "explorer.exe" but named differently such as "explorer_backup.exe, i have replaced since the exploreframe.dll with my original, as well as replacing the explorer.exe with the original but still the only thing that will show the icons correctly is starting explorer.exe named differently, really could use some fresh ideas or thoughts

 

[tw33k]

Have you read this? I think you leave the Syswow64 files alone. Someone will be along along shortly to confirm.

Welcome to the forums by the way

 

[zigzag3143]

Hi, new to the forums but have used several tutorials in the past to fix or improve my windows 7 professional 64 bit, pretty comfortable with windows 7 being a student tech at college

my problem is I recently decided to change my theme as well as change my icons through "resource hacker" in that order, with my theme, i replaced the "explorerframe.dll" and "explorer.exe" as well as putting the theme into themes folder, after that I modified the imageres.dll file with a few custom icons, now is the confusing part, I modified the imageres file in the system 32 folder, but then noticed there was one is Syswow64 folder so i modified that one as well, but when i restarted my computer the icons didn't show even though when I would pull up the imageres.dll file it would show the custom icons, but what does show the icons correctly is starting a duplicate "explorer.exe" but named differently such as "explorer_backup.exe, i have replaced since the exploreframe.dll with my original, as well as replacing the explorer.exe with the original but still the only thing that will show the icons correctly is starting explorer.exe named differently, really could use some fresh ideas or thoughts

Question is do you want to fix the modified or return it to original condition

 

[nick12bnack]

would love to fix the modified so that I can have the theme as well as the custom icons, I'm currently restoring the imageres.dll file in the syswow64 folder to see if that is a solution

 

[Arc]

Hi Nick ! Welcome to the forums !
Firstly , you need to get a complete system image backup before you attempt to modify your system files.
When changing explorerframe.dll, first rename the original to explorerframeORIGINAL.dll or something like that, dont delete it. Now put the modified (downloaded, I think?) file in the location , restart (computer or explorer) to see the changes.

Why are you changing the explorer.exe? If it is to change the start button only, better you use Win 7 Start Button Changer 2.0 by ~Kishan-Bagaria on deviantART . It will change the start buttons without any hazards .

While modifying imageres.dll, save the output of resource hacker on desktop, named imageres.dll . Now rename the original as imageresORIGINAL.dll, and put the modified in location. Restart to see changes. BTW, you need not to do anything with syswow64.

And finally , dont forget to get a complete system image backup before anything .

 

[nick12bnack]

alright, thanks for the timely responses, now I'm even more confused, I do have a full system image, but i rather not have to use it, I restored the original explorer.exe and have the originals of imageres.dll and restored exploreframe.dll, and right now, half of the custom icons show appropriately with respect to what icons are in the imageres.dll file....?

 

[tw33k]

Why don't you use System Restore to return the system to before you made the changes then you can simply start fresh?

 

[Arc]

Do you want to get rid of the changed icons? Better you restore the system image. Sometimes custom icons are not changed alongwith the icon changing, coz they are hold in icons cache ...

If you have enough experience to manage your system files (sorry I dont know whether it is so or not as you just joined here, and so I beg your pardon) , you may go for rebuilt icon cache and etc etc steps. Otherwise it is the easiest way to restore the system image.

 

[nick12bnack]

well system restore failed so i suppose I'll reimage my partition, i haven't yet done it before, I used acronis image backup, has anyone else used this imaging program?

 

[tw33k]

I use Acronis True Image Home and it's brilliant

 

[nick12bnack]

well i appreciate all the help, I'll have to wait to image my computer till tomorrow because the image is on my external which I don't have with me, I'll post again after I reimage and start from fresh