Change The Default Windows XP Folder Icon!

This is the first and best tutorial on the net to change the default Windows XP Folder Icon!

Haven’t You Always Hated The Ugly Yellow Default Windows XP Folder Icon?

Well Now You Can Easily Change It, Without Any Applications Ruining Your PCs Performance!

Here We Go!:

1. First download Resource Hacker here, this is a small program used for editing .exe, dll and other Win32 resource files.

2. While it is downloading (it is pretty much an instantaneous, very small download, but oh well) we need to make a backup of one important system file called shell32.dll. It can be found in c:\windows\system32\shell32.dll. To see this file you may have to turn off ‘Hide protected operating system files’ and ‘Show hidden files and folders’ in the view tab of folder options (under tools in my computer). Just drag a copy of shell32.dll from system32 to your desktop.

3. Open resource hacker and select file - open. Open the copy of shell32.dll on your desktop.

4. Select 'Action' from the top menu and navigate to 'Replace Icon', click on it.

5. Select either 4 or 5 in the list to the right, these are the folder icons. We will replace both of these. 4 is an open folder, 5 is a closed folder.

6. Highlight either 4 or 5 and select 'open file with new icon'. Navigate to the new icon (it should be close to the same size as the old one) and press open. Now click replace.

7. Do the same for the other icon (either 4 or 5), and click replace, making sure you use different 'closed' and 'open' folder icons.

8. Select file - save. Resource Hacker will also automatically create a backup on your desktop, you can just delete this. (The file we are editing is already a backup).

9. Now download the tiny and simple program called replacer from here. This is a program which makes it easy to replace system files, which you need to do to replace the original shell32.dll file with your edited one.

10. Now open Replacer, a DOS window will come up, follow the instructions on screen. You will have to drag the original system file and then the replacement system file (your backup shell32.dll file on the desktop which was edited). Once completed restart.

11. Download (if you don’t already have it) the simple Microsoft utility 'TweakUI' from here.

12. Run TweakUI, click repair in the left hand column. Select ‘Rebuild Icons’ from the drop-down list and then click repair now.

Congratulations! You now have an all new Default Windows XP Folder Icon!

Your desktop icon arrangement will be lost, you will have to sort that out again. Try making a new folder to test out your new icon!