ResourcesExtract scans all dll, exe, ocx and cpl file for icons but also for the following other types of resources: bitmaps, avi files, cursors, type libraries, html related resources and more. The most interesting aspect of the software program is the automatic scanning and extraction which works nicely.

Scanning the Windows folders including all of its subfolders takes only a matter of seconds. All extracted resources are saved in the selected destination folder for further processing.

All Nirsoft applications support command line parameters. ResourcesExtract supports several parameters that can extract specified resources from a selected directory.

The software program is portable and works on any version of Windows starting with Windows 98 including Windows XP and Windows Vista.

IcoFx could be the icon editor of choice then for you. It can create Icons for Windows 98 to Windows Vista and Macintosh OS X computers and provides functions to convert icons from Mac to Windows (and Windows to Mac) and to extract icons from 32-bit exe and dll files. One great feature is the ability to add, change or delete icons in executables which means that you could permanently change icons of explorer.exe for instance.

The interface looks clean, crisp and is very responsive to user input. The most gorgeous feature in my opinion is the ability to create icons from images. Just select an image on your hard drive and select the color depths and size of the icon that you want to create in the first step and use the advanced import settings to pick a specific part of the image, change the resolution and transparency.

The icon will then be created and can be saved in the usual icon formats. Colors range from 2 colors to True Color + Alpha Channels which equals 1-bit to 32-bit. Supported resolutions are 16×16, 24×24, 32×32, 48×48, 256×256 and custom resolutions.

Different sizes can be created and merged by dragging and dropping them into one icon window which has the effect that several sizes are supported in the icon file that will be created.

Icons Extract offers a very sophisticated way to extract icons from files. You can either scan files, folders or processes that you want to scan for icons. If you know where the icon that you want is located you simply point Icon Extract to that folder or file and the icon will be displayed.

Once the icons are displayed you can save them to your hard drive in ICO and CUR format so that you can change the application’s icon to the one that you just extracted. Four filter can be used to narrow down results. You can search for icons and cursors or only one of them and can specify a specific image size and color depth.

I performed a test scan of my Program Files folder which revealed roughly 6000 icons after scanning the entire folders for some minutes. To save one or more icons select them and click on the save button on top.