CWLee said:
On both my Windows 2000 Pro system, and on my XP Home edition, there is an
icon library under C:\ ... system32\progman.exe
On my Vista Ultimate, 64-bit, I cannot find that collection of icons. I
can find a nice collection at C:\ ... system32\shell32.dll but it does
not contain the specific icons I'm seeking.
Are there other icon libraries "hidden" in Vista which I can access and
then look for my favorite icons?
Thanks.
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CWLee
Former slayer of dragons; practice now limited to sacred
cows. Believing we should hire for quality, not quotas, and
promote for performance, not preferences.
Hey hey Mr. Lee--
If you have experience slaying dragons, nailing the 1000+ native icons in
Win XP, Vista, and Win 7 should be a piece of cake. Additionally, you can
troll for thousands more icons a couple of other ways.
1) Icons are nailed in the Windows OS from many sources that are native,
default, intrinsic or as we say on the street the Windows OS comes packin'
wit dem.
First of all, many many many .dlls in the System 32 folder have them. Many
don't. The best way to find out is when you have time to kill, you just
click 'em and they will show up. Note--you can't just navigate to the
C:\Windows\System32 folder from the IE address bar, run box, or other places
to find the icons. You have to open these .dlls in this way: Put a new
folder on your desktop or pick one. Rt. click>properties>customize>change
icon>there are icons in the default folder of course>then browse>system32
will be the default folder. From there, there are probably about 70 .dlls
full of icons or containing just a few. Some have none and your click will
be in vain. Just return to browse and you'll be back in the System 32
folder.
Tip: When in the System 32 folder, scroll down past the folders themselves
and to the .dlls. If your place left off in the "M's" then click any .dll
and then hit the "M" key to save scrolling.
Tip: In the System 32 folder, almost ever colored icon for an application
or component of Vista or Windows 7 has icons in them if you click them, but
they aren't necessarily prolific or the best icons.
2) One other good source in the OS is to use the change icon dialogue box
and navigate to a program folder. For example, if I want something to have
an Office application icon, like the Excel Icon, I simply follow the path
above, and after hitting the browse button I substitute in the address bar
of the System 32 folder, C:\Program Files (or whatever drive you have MSFT
Office installed into. Then I go to for example on one of my boxes
E:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12 and I can click on the different
Office apps there and find icons in every program's folder.
You can harvest
different Office icons from the different programs like Access, Word,
Powerpoint, Excel, Infopath, One Note, etc. Sometimes other folders willhave
icons for use--you have to check them out on a trial/error basis.
Note that all your download programs often have many folders for icons
forexample C:\Programs\Photoshop or C:\Windows or C:\ZipFiles\Whatever
Program.
Even hidden file folders can yield interesting icons. You're going to
kisssome frogs for example on the System 32 .dlls, but native to Vista
orWindows XP and other Windows OS flavors you'll find staches of
interestingicons like moricons.dll, hticons.dll, pifmgr.dll
3) Favicons are a great source.
I collect icons including favicons from
www.whatever.com/favicon.ico when
they are available (I mean by that I add favicon.ico to the url and see if
Ican drag a favicon from the resulting window if one is available). Then I
put the icons in a folder and can exchange them from properties>customize
tab>change icon button or similar buttons when you right click properties.
You cannot exchange with shortcuts in Vista for some ridiculous reason only
people on the Shell Team can explain,, but you can exchange with folders.
In XP you can exchange with shortcuts, and in Windows 7, déjà vu all over
again, you can. I think it has something to do with Yogi Berra throwing out
the first pitch in the new Yankee Stadium the other day.
The way to keep the "e" from coming back when you reboot or clear Temp
Internet Files is that you have to apply two rules.
1) You have to rename the new icon or favicon
2) You have to give it a house, i.e. you have to tuck it into a folder.
If you don't fulfill both those requirements you're going to loose that
newicon you exchanged.
To get the You Tube favicon ) you simply type
www.youtube.com/favicon.ico
and then left click mouse drag the favicon from the window onto the
desktop.It's a simple concept; once you drag a favicon out of a window, you
have togive it a name and ahouse. You have to save the icons in a folder--I
call mine originally Favicons and store it on my data drive but you can drag
it anywhere and then you navigate to it to change to its icon. I have
hundreds of icons I've collected over the years in mine, and give it to
people as gifts.
4) You can google or msn search or search engine for specific icons and many
of them are free. Then you drag and drop the icon folder or icons as long
as they are .ico into your favicons folder and you can then use them.
Example:
http://www.google.com/search?num=30&hl=en&safe=off&q=vista+icon+sets
In summary, the XP, Vista, and Windows 7 OS have over 1000 native icons that
can be harvested and used via the Change Icon dialogue box. You can also
harvest from program folders, and from zip files downloaded. Another huge
source are finding specific icon collections, many free, using a search
engine.
Enjoy.
Good luck,
CH
