Icons!

[jaba]

Hi, I have finally started "customizing" my xp installation, and have got to the issue of icons..I have downloaded iconphile which I cant use cos im a cretin and I have some .iconset files and some .icl files none of which iconphile wants to know about..what the smeg do I do with them??

 

[.Wilier.]

Hi, I have finally started "customizing" my xp installation, and have got to the issue of icons..I have downloaded iconphile which I cant use cos im a cretin and I have some .iconset files and some .icl files none of which iconphile wants to know about..what the smeg do I do with them??

From memory (its been a while since I messed around) but cant you just hold your .ico files in a folder, right click on the icon you wish to change, click change icon and browse to your .ico folder? (not sure if this only works fro desktop icons though)

AFAIK, and Ive been known to be wrong, so dont take this as gospel, XP dosnt allow you to bugger about with themes etc, without fiddeling around inside the Reg anyway.

I think the easiest way is to DL an app like TGT Soft's STyle XP which allows you to completley change the appearance of XP, right down to the logon screen.

Personally, Ive just started playing with Hoverdesk but have yet to get to grips with it.

 

[jaba]

Yeah i can change icons like that but there are lots of them and I want to change them in one fell swoop, in the .iconlist file it is an xml document mapping which icon to which thing it represents but I cant get it to change them all automatically... I have got a new theme installed and it looks cool!

 

[Shovel]

If you need to get icons out of icl libraries for any reason - or out of anything else for that matter, give @icon sushi a look. You can use it to grab icons from pretty much anything, and convert PNGs to icons too - which you may find immensely useful.

When you open up an icon resource you'll find you get a separate listed item for each size, select all of them for the icon you want, and then there's an "export to icon" button which creates a .ico file from all the individual images you've selected.

Changing icons is a bit more of a pig to be honest. Iconphile - which due to its freeness is my programme of choice right now - does most things in most situations, but you'll find that even if you change the default folder icons for explorer (e.g. the folder icons you see when you browse around windows), the folder icons in Open/Save dialogs will still be yellow-tastic like normal. It's a minor annoyance really.

The most thorough way is using a hacked .dll (such as Shell32.dll) which physically replaces the original icons, but this has fairly obvious risks attached. It's also rather labourious to do your own custom set up, though there're quite a few premade ones for icon sets drifting about the web these days.

Anyway, have fun

 

[jaba]

So there is no way of just using the .iconset or .icl files as they are? no program that can magically take that file and change my icons to the ones contained within? ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! bugger, my laziness is getting the better of me
thanks for the help guys

 

[Shovel]

Well, there is Icon Packager, which has its own format of "Icon Packages" to change the entire system. The latest StyleXP supports them as well (I think). Neither are free though.

 

[jaba]

:worthy:Shovel is my hero! He is all knowing!! :worthy:

 

[Shovel]

Not quite all knowing, just a style whore.

 

[Miles_Binck]

a nice little utility I have come across is GUIReplacer it will do everything IconPackager and other icon tools do and it will also allow you to replace the throbbers (animated graphics in move/copy/delete/download etc) in all files and all of this in the click of a button

you can download the icon packages from places like Neowin and DeviantArt