Getting XP style icons back

[Guest]

I downloaded some of Microsoft's unsupported Power Toys
(http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx)
yesterday. After playing with these wonderfully undocumented tools, now all
icons on my XP system have reverted to the flat old style 2000 look. Even
when I open the Properties for an icon, select a new XP style looking icon
(from %SystemRoot%\system32\SHELL32.dll), the icon doesn't change to the look
I selected, but stays with the old W2K style.

I am guessing that something in the "TweakUI" Power Toy changed a registry
setting somewhere to cause this, but I can't figure out which one.

Any ideas about how to fix this?

thanks so much for any help

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

Hi XPicons,

This is a known issue, caused by an incorrect data assigned to Shell Icon BPP registry value. Re-setting the Shell Icon BPP value to 16 resolves the problem.

*First, try a System Restore rollback in case you've played with many other Tweak UI options*.

If not, use the following steps to fix the icon issue:

1. Open Registry Editor and navigate to the following key:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics]

2. In the right-pane, double-click Shell Icon BPP and set it's value to 16

3. Close Registry Editor.

To apply the change instantly, try this:

a. Right-click Desktop, choose Properties, Appearance Tab.
b. Click Advanced button, choose Icon from the drop-down list
c. Set it's size to 33 and press OK.
d. Apply the changes and then close the dialog

Repeat the above steps (a-d) and set the Icon size to 32 (defaults). The icons are now rebuild, but they lost the custom positions in the Desktop.

--
Ramesh, Microsoft MVP
Windows XP Shell/User
http://windowsxp.mvps.org


I downloaded some of Microsoft's unsupported Power Toys
(http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx)
yesterday. After playing with these wonderfully undocumented tools, now all
icons on my XP system have reverted to the flat old style 2000 look. Even
when I open the Properties for an icon, select a new XP style looking icon
(from %SystemRoot%\system32\SHELL32.dll), the icon doesn't change to the look
I selected, but stays with the old W2K style.

I am guessing that something in the "TweakUI" Power Toy changed a registry
setting somewhere to cause this, but I can't figure out which one.

Any ideas about how to fix this?

thanks so much for any help