To start, we will change the Recycle Bin, Computer and Network icons. This is so simple that you may find yourself doing it often just to keep things looking fresh.

Right-click anywhere on the desktop (except on an icon) and select Personalize

You can also access this window from the Control Panel and click Appearance and Personalization. Click the “Change desktop icons” link in the left sidebar of the window.

For Vista, the process is actually the same but the window will look different. Choose the icon that you wish to change and click on it once then click the “Change Icon” button. You can check the box next to “Allow themes to change desktop icons” to make this a little more interesting.

Now you may either select one of the included icons or click Browse and find the icon you wish to use. Click OK when you have selected the desired icon.

Changing Folder Icons

It also takes just a few steps to change the icons for most folders in Windows 7 as well as Vista. Simply right-click on the folder and then click Properties. Click the Customize tab.

Follow the same steps as you did previously to change the basic desktop icons. Choose an icon from the listing or browse for a specific icon image such as a PNG or JPEG image. You can even go to the Pictures folder and choose a picture and use that as the icon. To keep it simple for this demonstration, a preset icon will be selected.

Once the new icon is selected, click Apply and the icon will be set.

In Windows 7, you cannot change the icon for a library folder. If you are browsing the Documents library and you do want to change the icon for a particular folder, right-click the folder and open the folder location. Now you will be able to change the icon using the same steps as above. There are other techniques for changing icons in Windows 7. This is just intended as a simple overview of the method.

Windows offers the capabilities of changing program and file icons. Many users do that to make them fit into a custom theme, while others like to use custom icons for personalization or better identification.

It is however usually not possible to simply pick an image format like png, bmp or jpg and use that as the new icon for the application, file or service. These image formats need to be converted first, before they can be used as the new icon.

Convert Images Into Windows Icons

Imagicon is a free program to convert image formats into Windows icons. The freeware supports bmp, jpg, png and ico (with ico being the icon format), and supports conversion into all supported formats.

The default conversion mode is set to convert any image format that is dragged and dropped into the application window into Windows icon format. The process requires no further user interaction besides the dropping of images into the program window. Multiple images will be converted one after another.

The newly created icons are saved in the same folder that the original images are stored in. The options can be used to change the icon size from the default 32×32 to 16×16, 48×48, 128×128 or 64×64. It is furthermore possible to enable transparency.

Additional preferences are available in the Options. It is for instance possible to change the output directory for the newly created icon files, change the save mode from Windows Icon (ico) to png, bmp or jpg, alter the quality of the output files, or change the output images’ size and orientation.

Imagicon is a handy software program to convert images into an ICO image.

Imagicon Download And Compatibility

Imagicon is compatible with 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. The program is offered as a free download at the developer website.

[tags]icon, windows, macintosh, interface, graphic[/tags]