Website icons revert after being changed

[Guest]

How do I stop website icons from reverting after being changed.

I create an internet shortcut file on my desktop that goes to a webpage.
Most of the time, I move it to my quick launchbar. Doesn't matter which
location it is in, the same thing happens. After I change the icon to a nice
one, when I click on the icon and go to the webpage, as soon as I interact on
the webpage, the icon reverts to whatever the small favicon is on the webpage.

I think microsoft is aware of the problem... just wanna know how to fix it
without having to change the entire registry...


For example: gamefly.com

They have their own icon. So when I go to their website, which ever icon I
have changed the shortcut to, now becomes the netflix icon again. It doesn't
matter how many times I try to change it back, it keeps reverting every time
I visit the webpage.

I wouldn't mind as much, but the icons are 16x16, so when they blow up to
32x32 they look very bad.

Anyone else experienced this? Any way to stop the changed icons from
reverting back to the original icons on each specific website?

answer 1: This is definitely a vista problem... loads of people complain
about this one.

Here's what I would do... create a folder in your user directory to put the
..url files into, and then create shortcuts on your desktop to the items in
that folder. You can customize the icons for the shortcuts, and they
shouldn't be changed by IE.

answer 2: OK, apparently, the easiest fix is to save the urls as a
favorite. Change the icon. Create the shortcut to the desktop. Right click on
the icon, choose properties, click on the general tab, click read-only, and
that keeps the icon from changing back when you go to the website.

I tried it, dragged them to the quick launch bar, and I can't believe they
aren't changing!

I'm thrilled...

All comments welcome...

 

[Chad Harris]

Hello ms--

The way I read you you want to keep a favicon in the form it is when you
drag it to the desktop or get it on the desktop in some way. You have to
meet two requirements--you have to change its name and give it a house.

There are 3 major avenues toward getting icons: he ways are 1) favicons 2)
Native icons within Windows OS's--there are 100's you can mine 3) The icon
extractors--many of them.

To get the You Tube favicon (I tried to post an image but the group wouldn't
allow a small 32 KB image) you simply type www.youtube.com/favicon.ico and
then left click mouse drag the favicon from the window onto the deskktop.
It's a simple concept; once you drag a favicon out of a window, you have to
give it a name and a
house. You have to save the icons in a folder--I call mine originally
"Favicons."

1) Many sites have a "logo-like" icon available (but not all) if you add
favicon.ico to the url after a forward slash.
2) #1 can change over time--not all have them.
3) Some sites won't yield the favicon--i.e. you'll see it and it refuses to
drag complete with a no drag sign--a slash surrounded by a circle when you
try.


All Windows OS's including Vista have between 1000 and 2000 "instrinsic" or
"native" icons. Many of them come from some of the .dll folders in the
Vista Drive\Windows\System 32 folder; they can come from downloaded
programs, installed programs, zip files, etc. When you right click a folder
in Vista>properties>browse>you can browse to a particular Program--for
example if Microsoft Office is in your C:\Programs files you can harvest
different Office icons from the different programs like Access, Word,
Powerpoint, Excel, Infopath, One Note, etc. Sometimes other folders will
have 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 for
example C:\Programs\Photoshop or C:\Windows or C:\ZipFiles\Whatever Program.
Even hidden file folders can yield interesting icons. You're going to kiss
some frogs for example on the System 32 .dlls, but native to Vista or
Windows XP and other Windows OS flavors you'll find staches of interesting
icons like moricons.dll, hticons.dll, pifmgr.dll

Icons are stashed in many of the of the C:\Windows\System 32 .dllsand they
can be exchanged. There is one important and unfortunate difference in
Vista and XP; in XP you can exchange icons for shortcuts; in
Vista you can only exchange for explorer folders, i.e. rt.
clickdesktop>new>folder then rt. click folder>properties>customize or
sometimes modify>change icon.

Good luck,

CH

 

[Guest]

Nope, exact opposite... I want MY icons, not the favicons.

When I change it to MY icon and then go to the website, it reverts to the
favicon that I don't want.

The 'read-only' fix is working great... Now I can have MY picture
representatives of the websites, not theirs. I like mine much better.

THANKS however for such a thorough answer. I'm sure it will help someone!

Jeannie