How to Change Your Icons (Newbies 5)
Cordelia's Corner for the Complete Newb: Part 5
Friday, January 7, 2005 by Cordelia | Discussion: OS Customization
Today, class, we are going to talk about changing your Icons.
You know on your desktop there is a little thing that looks like a trash can, and you use it to delete files you don’t want, and sometimes files you later realize you needed quite badly? That trash can is a graphic representation - or icon - of the program that deletes your files. Your “My Documents” folder is an icon. When you click on 
to open the Word program, you are clicking on an icon. Some icons represent programs, and some represent ways to navigate through your computer, some represent religious beliefs. We will not be covering that last one here today.
For more information go to www.icons.com.
Ha ha! Fooled you! That website takes you to the "Official Site for the World's Leading Footballers".
I was forced to learn about icons because my husband Mormegil decided a long time ago that he would use his graphic design powers for good and not evil. His desire for desktop customization took him on a long journey in search of the perfect desktop. It's a journey that hasn't ended, and I'm just beginning to realize it never will. He began spending much of his spare time with his new object of adoration: the icon.
Here is the standard Windows Trash Can icon (I'm running XP) 
Here is a FauxS-X Trash Can icon. 
(You can download it for free here)
You see the difference? There are hundreds of different packages to choose from, so if this one isn't to your liking then something else will be. I have to use his icons or risk a battle that would threaten the very foundations of the Earth. Heh, artists.
Why bother to change these things? They are so small they hardly matter, right? Wrong. Having been left out alone and shivering in the cold world of the non-customized computer, I finally realized I was going to have to get involved. If you are going to go about desktop customization at all, then you've got to change the icons too. If you don't, then you know what people call you? "Rookie". And that, my friends, is a real tragedy. Not to mention the fact that your computer looks weird without them. It's a fashion no-no, like wearing colored stockings with a sleeveless dress - it's just plain wrong.
I use IconPackager to change my icons, which you can get for free here, and it comes with some cool standard icons. There are also hundreds of icons packs to choose from in the gallery, so there are a lots of choices and you can change icons with each skin if you want to. When you open it it looks like this:
Let's say you've got IconPackager installed and you have already downloaded some icons you'd like to use. Click on Install New Package and browse to where you have the newly downloaded icon pack saved.
Click on open and IconPackager will add that icon pack to the library. You can then select it and click load.
Oddly enough after you've clicked "Load" you still have to click "Apply" to apply the icons to your system.
That's all there is! I mean, that's really all there is. I've been trying to keep this series funny but let's face it folks, there's just nothing funny about icons.
Daily Hint for the Noob: If you have IconPackager installed then you can right click on any file icon and go to "Properties". Click on the "Icon" tab. You can now change the icon for that file type to any other icon you have in your library. Confuse your friends and baffle your enemies! Make all your Word documents use the Internet Explorer icon!
Monday's Article: Changing your wallpaper. Much funnier than you might think.
Share your jokes about icons here and win a free donkey!!!
(Offer not valid for those who live locally or globally)
Today I'm running the "Azar" skin by Apocalypse_67. Get it here!
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Reply #22 Tuesday, January 25, 2005 5:59 PM
Because my Desktop is litterally cramped with Icons everytime I changed just one or two or tried another pack
I ended up half an hour putting them all in place again.
(check out Icon-X they keep position only newly added icons get stacked on the left)
How ever lovely Icon-Packager is it is not enough for me
check this out Micro Angelo has a cool function which I use often to really organize my work.
When you right click a folder and choose "Appearance", you can change each folder to an icon of your liking
I like the glass folders and they are all different colors
It works by an ini file which resides in the folder.
I'd like to ad an image of the effect but I don't know about url's. anyway with all different folders for me and the kids it's highly organised and visualized
You can also add another background per folder and so on crazy and all by ini files. (allmost a little tutorial...hhhmmm)
If any one knows how to keep all in place (no not microsoft snap shit function) I used to have a little gem util for that but it's obsolete now it stored positions in a database in the registry back in the days of windows 1998. and offered a one click restore.
I like to hear about that too
Reply #23 Friday, January 28, 2005 11:37 AM
I will try and find answers and get back to you ASAP.
Reply #24 Sunday, January 30, 2005 10:00 PM
How do I go about making the text portion of the desktop icons transparent to the wallpaper or desktop color? I find that frequently I will have these lovely icons on my desktop but that they will be marred by a colored rectangle containing the icon text just below the icon itself (especially if I have changed the desktop color or set a new wallpaper)-
I am certain that there must be a way to make that rectangle transparent so that the wallpaper/desktop color comes through, but for the life of me I can't figure out how.
If anyone has an idea I'd love to hear it.
Reply #25 Thursday, February 17, 2005 10:11 AM
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Reply #21 Tuesday, January 25, 2005 9:55 AM
Link
..or apparently the more recent Resource Explorer (which I haven't played around with yet myself):
Link
It was also the only way I was able to get my win2k system to show the icons I wanted it to (no matter what program I used, IP, Axalias, etc, and no matter how many times I rebuilt the icon cache [yes it's set to the max size too] old default windows icons would still show up in exporer and the start menu).. a bit tedious hacking the .dlls, but then win2k is a pile at best.
Good tips otherwise tho!