{"id":856,"date":"2009-02-11T12:18:22","date_gmt":"2009-02-11T06:48:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/198.58.113.91\/blog\/?p=856"},"modified":"2021-05-20T22:47:56","modified_gmt":"2021-05-20T17:17:56","slug":"change-default-icon-file-type-windows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/change-default-icon-file-type-windows\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Change the Icon for a File Type in Windows"},"content":{"rendered":"

Surprisingly, Windows doesn’t have a built-in option to allow users to set custom icons for file types. If you have a custom file type and the corresponding program doesn’t have a nice-looking icon in its .exe or .dll resource, you can manually change or customize the default icon for that file type.<\/p>\n

This article explains how to change the default icon for a file type using different methods in Windows. Instructions apply to all versions of Windows, including Windows 10<\/p>\n

How to Change the Default Icon for a File Type<\/h2>\n

You can change the default icon for a file type using the built-in Registry Editor. In the second method, let’s see how to change the default icon using Default Programs Editor<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Method 1: Using the Registry Editor<\/h3>\n

Let’s assume you want to change the file type icon for .txt files, and here is how to do that.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Click Start, type regedit.exe<\/b><\/code> , and press Enter<\/kbd><\/li>\n
  2. Navigate to the following branch:\n
    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Software\\Microsoft\\Windows\\CurrentVersion\\Explorer\\FileExts\\.txt\\UserChoice<\/pre>\n<\/li>\n
  3. In the right pane, note down the value data for Progid<\/b><\/code> (e.g. txtfile<\/i><\/code>). This is the user-chosen (via Default Programs or Open with dialog) Programmatic Identifier<\/a> for the file extension.<\/em>
    \n<\/p>\n
    Registry Branch Not Found?<\/h4>\n<\/li>\n
  4. If the UserChoice<\/b><\/code> branch does not exist, navigate to the following branch:\n
    HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\\.txt<\/pre>\n<\/li>\n
  5. In the right pane, note down the (default)<\/code> value data (e.g. txtfile<\/i><\/code>).
    \n<\/li>\n
  6. Navigate to the following key (where txtfile<\/u><\/code> is the Prog ID noted in Step 2 or Step 4 above)\n
    HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\\txtfile\\DefaultIcon<\/pre>\n
    If the DefaultIcon<\/code> key does not exist by default, you need to create it manually.
    \n<\/em><\/li>\n
  7. In the right-pane, double-click (default)<\/code> and mention the path to your custom icon (.ico<\/i> file or reference to an icon inside an EXE\/DLL file. See “Icons From DLL\/EXE Files<\/strong>” paragraph at the end of this article).
    \n<\/li>\n
  8. Edit the (default)<\/code> value data, mentioning the path to an icon file. For this example, I used a notepad icon file from the web<\/a>, saved it to a permanent location, and mentioned the full path.\n
    If you’re using a custom icon file, make sure it’s at least 128 x 128. Although it’s not a rule, this is to make sure icons look nice when folder view is set to large or extra-large icons.<\/em><\/div>\n
    <\/li>\n
  9. Exit the Registry Editor.<\/li>\n
  10. Log off, log back in, or refresh the icons<\/a> and see if the Text file icons are updated.
    \n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    Icons From DLL\/EXE Files<\/h4>\n
    If you don’t have a custom .ico file, you may use the icon picker dialog box to choose an icon from an EXE\/DLL file.<\/p>\n
      \n
    1. To launch the icon picker dialog, right-click on a folder in your system, click Properties.<\/li>\n
    2. Click the Customize tab, and click the “Change Icon…” button.<\/li>\n
    3. Use the icon picker to choose the icon and make a note of the index. The index starts from “0<\/code>“, and you need to proceed vertically when counting (top to bottom.)
      \n\"change<\/li>\n
    4. Browse to shell32.dll<\/code> or imageres.dll<\/code> and note down the icon index.<\/li>\n
    5. Cancel the icon picker dialog and close the folder properties dialog.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
      For example, to set the 260<\/code>th icon in Shell32.dll<\/code>, mention the following path in Step 8:<\/p>\n
      C:\\Windows\\System32\\Shell32.dll,260<\/pre>\n
      (This procedure doesn’t change the file type associations, only the icon assigned to that file type. If the icons don’t update even if you restart Windows, refresh the icons<\/a> manually or rebuild the icon cache<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n
      \n
      Additional note<\/h4>\n
      As the icon change is made to the ProgId txtfile<\/strong> in the registry, it also affects the other file extensions that use the same ProgId. For instance, in my system, the txtfile<\/strong> ProgID is being used by .log<\/code>, .scp<\/code> & .wtx<\/code> file extensions. Those files will also show up with the new icon.<\/p>\n
      To know which file extensions are using a ProgID (i.e., txtfile<\/strong>), run this command in the Command Prompt window:<\/p>\n
      assoc | findstr \/i \"txtfile\"<\/pre>\n
      \"How<\/p>\n
      RELATED:<\/strong> See article How to Remove File Type Associations Using the Registry Editor<\/a> for more information on File extension \u2192 ProgID mapping.<\/em><\/p>\n
      It’s possible to change the default icon for a file type without affecting other file types. To do that, you’ll need to create a new file class or ProgID for the file extension, and assign the default icon in the newly created file class.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
      \n
      Method 2: Using Default Programs Editor<\/h3>\n
      Don’t want to edit the registry to change file type icons?\u00a0There are 3rd party tools like Default Programs Editor<\/strong> and FileTypesMan<\/strong> that can change the file type icons and association settings.<\/p>\n
      Default Programs Editor is a useful tool that helps you edit file type associations and add or remove AutoPlay handlers and static context menu entries. We’ve covered Default Programs Editor before. Default Programs Editor – A Useful File Association Editor<\/a><\/p>\n
      In this method, let us see how you can accomplish the task using the Default Programs Editor.<\/p>\n
        \n
      1. Download Default Programs Editor<\/a>, unzip, and run the executable.<\/li>\n
      2. Select File Type Settings<\/strong>
        \n\"How<\/li>\n
      3. Click Icon<\/strong>
        \n\"How<\/li>\n
      4. Select the file extension for which you want to change the icon, on the next screen.
        \n\"How<\/li>\n
      5. This screen shows the current icon for the file type. To change it, click on the Browse button.
        \n\"change<\/li>\n
      6. In the icon picker dialog, browse and locate an icon, or point to a custom .ico file if you have one. The built-in imageres.dll<\/code> and shell32.dll<\/code> files contain many icons for you to choose from.
        \n\"change<\/li>\n
      7. Click the Save Icon<\/strong> button to save the changes to the registry.
        \nAs you can see in the screenshot, you also can save the settings to a file. If you need to apply the changes to several computers, you can output the settings to a .REG file. This can be done by clicking the arrow mark near the Save Icon button and choosing Save to .reg file<\/strong>. You can deploy or apply the .reg file on other computers without having to rerun the utility.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
        That’s it! The default icon for .txt<\/code><\/strong> file type is changed, and the icons should refresh automatically.<\/p>\n
        \"change
        [Before] .txt files showing standard icons<\/figcaption><\/figure>
        \"change
        [After] .txt files showing custom icons<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n
        \n
        Method 3: Using FileTypesMan<\/h3>\n
        FileTypesMan<\/a> list of all file extensions and types registered on your computer. For each file type, the following information is displayed: Type Name, Description, MIME Type, Perceived Type, Flags, Browser Flags, and more. FileTypesMan also allows you to edit the properties and flags of each file type easily and allows you to add, edit, and remove actions in a file type. This utility works in all Windows versions including, Windows 10.<\/p>\n
        Screenshots<\/strong><\/p>\n
        \"How<\/p>\n
        \"How<\/p>\n
        %SystemRoot%\\system32\\imageres.dll,-102<\/code> is the Windows-default icon for .txt files.<\/p>\n
        \"How
        Windows-default icon for .txt files<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
        After setting the default icon to %SystemRoot%\\system32\\imageres.dll,14<\/code> via the icon picker dialog, here is how it shows up:<\/p>\n
        \"How
        Customized .txt files icon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
        \n
        Change the icon for Unknown and Extensionless files<\/h3>\n
        File types that are not registered with the system and files with no extension are assigned a generic icon from shell32.dll,0<\/code> by default.\u00a0The unknown or generic icon for unregistered file types and extensionless files can be customized as per your choice so that you don’t have to see the boring icon anymore.<\/p>\n
        Windows stores the icon setting for unknown file types and extensionless files in this registry key:<\/p>\n
        HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\\Unknown\\DefaultIcon<\/pre>\n
        The (default) or the unnamed value points to the following icon resource by default:<\/p>\n
        %SystemRoot%\\System32\\shell32.dll,0<\/pre>\n
        Using the Registry Editor (regedit.exe<\/code>), you can change the (default)<\/code> value so that it points to a .ico file that you already have or an icon resource inside a .dll or .exe file by mentioning the file name and resource identifier.<\/p>\n
        Using the Icon picker (a.k.a. the Change Icon dialog), you can use a relevant icon in shell32.dll, 224<\/code> that can be assigned for unregistered and extensionless files. You just need to replace the existing Value data (%SystemRoot%\\System32\\shell32.dll,0<\/code>) with %SystemRoot%\\System32\\shell32.dll,224<\/code> using the Registry Editor or using the REG files below.<\/p>\n
        Log off and login back into your account.<\/p>\n
        Here is how it looked before:<\/p>\n
        \"change<\/p>\n
        We’ve changed that to:<\/p>\n
        \"change<\/p>\n
        Tip:<\/b> If the icons don’t automatically refresh even after a logoff-logon cycle, you can force a shell icon refresh using the ie4uinit.exe method<\/a> or using Default Programs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
        Surprisingly, Windows doesn’t have a built-in option to allow users to set custom icons for file types. If you have a custom file type and the corresponding program doesn’t have a nice-looking icon in its .exe or .dll resource, you can manually change or customize the default icon for that file type. This article explains … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,7],"tags":[441],"class_list":["post-856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-utilities","category-windows","tag-registry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4432,"url":"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/set-custom-icon-pdf-files-firefox-default-pdf-viewer\/","url_meta":{"origin":856,"position":0},"title":"Set Custom icon for PDF Files with Chrome or Firefox as the Default PDF Viewer","author":"Ramesh","date":"October 24, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"If you've associated PDF files with Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox to make use of browser's built-in PDF viewing capability, the PDF and HTML files would show up with the same Chrome or Firefox icon in File Explorer. 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Change the Default Folder icon in Explorer Launch Regedit.exe and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Windows"","block_context":{"text":"Windows","link":"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/category\/microsoft\/windows\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"change folder icon in Windows","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/06\/change-folder-icon-color-3.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/06\/change-folder-icon-color-3.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/06\/change-folder-icon-color-3.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1075,"url":"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/fix-recycle-bin-icon-not-refresh-custom-icons-windows-7\/","url_meta":{"origin":856,"position":2},"title":"[Fix] Recycle Bin Icon Does Not Refresh Correctly","author":"Ramesh","date":"August 29, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"When you use a custom icon (.ico) file to customize the Recycle Bin Empty & Full icons manually or via a desktop theme, the Recycle Bin icon may not update or refresh correctly when emptying the Recycle Bin or when you add items to it. In some cases, the issue\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Windows"","block_context":{"text":"Windows","link":"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/category\/microsoft\/windows\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"recycle bin does not refresh","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/08\/w7-rbin-custicon-3.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":8738,"url":"https:\/\/www.winhelponline.com\/blog\/open-with-notepad-plus-right-click-menu-windows\/","url_meta":{"origin":856,"position":3},"title":"Add “Open with Notepad++” to the Right-Click Menu","author":"Ramesh","date":"April 19, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Many users have replaced Notepad with Notepad++ as the default text editor on their computers. Others use Notepad++ only when needed, and launch it via the Open with menu and choose Notepad++ from the list of options. 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