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(Solved) - Windows Icons
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Does Mike's screenshot answer your question or do you mean something like this?
For the latter there are some programs that help you do so, or you can do it manually (like I have done).
This includes changing systemfiles like Shell32.dll and Imageres.dll.
So it is a bit risky and I would urge you to make a good backup before you start.
I'll discuss it in detail with you when I know for sure this is what you want to do.
First, here is a zip file with the required icons:Folder Icons
I've added not only the empty folder icons, but also some common system folders. You might also want to change those, otherwise in between your nice new green folders you still have some yellow ones.
Secondly you need a program to change the icons in your system files. I use IcoFX. Version 1.6.4. is the last freeware version, but it does all we need (and a lot more ;D).
And lastly you need the systemfiles you want to change.
Those are:
Shell32.dll and Imageres.dll which you find in C:\Windows\System32
They cover 99,9% of all the folders.
If you want to be perfectionist about it there are some folders hidden in other locations:
Fontext.dll and Main.cpl for the Fontfolder icon,
Webcheck for the download/upload folder
and zipfldr.dll for the zipped folder.
Copy the dll files to a work location, like my documents.
And then we are ready to change the icons in the dll files.
Open IcoFX and go to Tools> Resource Editor.
This opens a subwindow with an option to open a specific file (the yellow open folder icon).
Browse to your file and open it.
Now you can see inside your dll file.
I've opened up my imageres.dll file which already has the green glass folder icons.
When you have changed all the icons you want you click the save button (little blue floppy icon next to the yellow open folder icon).
If you've changed a lot of icons saving might take a minute or so.
That's normal so don't interupt the process ;)
After you have changed the dll files, you'll want to use them.
This is the tricky part.
Make sure you have good backups.
Both of the dll files you are about to change, but preferably also an image of your entire OS partition.
You can use Macrium Reflect.
It's a free and very usefull backup utility.
You'll need a Vista PE disk or something like that to access your files while Windows isn't running.
Here is an iso I made.
Just burn it to disk and you'll have a nice Vista PE BootCD.
Boot from the disk and start freecommander or cubic explorer to browse to your System32 folder.
Rename Shell32.dll to Shell32.dll.old and do the same for Imageres.dll (and any other files you'll want to replace).
Copy your newly made files to the System32 folder.
Next browse to C:\Users\*username*\AppData\Local\ and delete the file 'IconCache.db'.
Reboot the computer.
Now you'll probably see that some icons have changed and others have not.
This is because they have been cached. Deleting IconCache.db was the first step to correcting that,
but you'll also have to delete your thumbnails.
You can do that by running Disk Cleanup (just type cleanmgr.exe in the run box and it will appear) and then make sure you have Thumbnails ticked.
You might have to reboot once more.
And that is it :)
If you run into trouble you can use the Vista PE BootCD to restore your old dll files or you can restore the image you made with Macrium.
Because I have to warn you: MS is erratic and sometimes it just doesn't work.
I've never had a problem making these changes myself, but I've seen plenty of people coming from DeviantArt where they got some nice icons and themes and all blows up in their face. So I can't stress enough how important it is to make good backups!
Good luck and enjoy!
Edit:
For more tutorials on icons you can take a look here:
Changing Foldericons using an icl
3D Text Commander can be used for creating nice icons
How to change all your systemfolders to green glass ones This is not really a tutorial, so you'll have to read along a bit :)
And while we're at it, this is nice too:
And on how to create these foldericons with PaintNET you can read here.
