Change Icon for My Computer, Recycle Bin, Others

Do you have icons for My Computer, My Documents, My Network Places, and/or Internet Explorer on your Windows XP desktop? And if so, would you like to change how the icons look?

1. Right-click an empty area of the desktop and choose "Properties".

2. When the "Display Properties" multi-tabbed dialog box appears, click the "Desktop" tab.

3. Click the "Customize Desktop" button.

4. A "Desktop Items" dialog box will appear. Make sure the "General" tab is selected.

5. Click on an icon to change:

* My Computer
* My Documents
* My Network Places
* Recycle Bin (full)
* Recycle Bin (empty)

6. Click "Change Icon".

7. If you like one of the available icons, choose one and click "OK". Or, you can browse your system for more icons including those you may have downloaded from the Internet. You can also use the icons embedded in executable files, DLLs, etc.

For a bunch of icons, enter this next to the "Browse" button and press ENTER:

%SystemRoot%\system32\SHELL32.dll

8. Click "OK" on the dialog boxes to close them.

Note 1: If you want to create your own icons, here is a list of editors for informational purposes only.

Easy Icon Maker - http://www.icon-maker.com/

IconCool - http://www.iconcool.com/

Microangelo - http://www.microangelo.us/

Note 2: If you don't like your changes, you can revert a Windows XP desktop icon back to its default.

Put Background for a folder!

1. Open Command Prompt and set folder attribute to "system". Suppose there is a folder "Setup" in "D:\" drive, in which you want to set a wallpaper as background image. So give following command in Command Prompt:

attrib +s D:\Setup

It'll change the attribute to "system".

2. Now open Notepad and paste following code:

[ExtShellFolderViews]
{BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC} = {BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC}

[{BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC}]
Attributes=1
IconArea_Image=path_of_the_wallpaper
IconArea_Text=0x00000000

Now change "path_of_the_wallpaper" to the exact path of the wallpaper which you want to set as background. Suppose the wallpaper is stored in "D:\Wallpaper\Image1.jpg", then the code will be as following:

[ExtShellFolderViews]
{BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC} = {BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC}

[{BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC}]
Attributes=1
IconArea_Image=D:\Wallpaper\Image1.jpg
IconArea_Text=0x00000000

NOTE: If you copy the wallpaper in the same folder which you are editing, then you can simply put the wallpaper name in the file. e.g. if you copy the "Image1.jpg" file in "Setup" folder, then the code will be as following:

[ExtShellFolderViews]
{BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC} = {BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC}

[{BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC}]
Attributes=1
IconArea_Image=Image1.jpg
IconArea_Text=0x00000000

"IconArea_Text" stands for the text color, you can change it to white, yellow, blue, black or any other color. You just need to know the hexa-decimal number of the color and then replace the code in "IconArea_Text" section. A few most used color codes are as follows:

Black - 0x00000000
White - 0x00FFFFFF
Green - 0x0000FF00
Blue - 0x00FF0000
Purple - 0x00C000C0
Red - 0x000000FF
Yellow - 0x0000FFFF
Indigo - 0x00FFFF00

3. Now save the file with name "Desktop.ini" (including quotes) and copy the file in the desired folder which is "Setup" in our example.

4. Thats it. Close the folder and re-open it. Now it should show the wallpaper as background.