Access Hidden Icons in Vista

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Note: Click on any image for a larger view of that particular image.

First, let’s back up a second and quickly go through how to customize an icon.

To customize an icon:

All you do is right click on the icon that you want to change, then choose Properties.

Customizing Vista Icons

Then a box will pop up, select the customize tab,

Customizing Vista Icons

Then click on the Change Icon button.

Customizing Vista Icons

When you do this the following selection of icons pops up:

{ gallery }default{ /gallery }

These can be accessed by changing the field “Look for items in this file" field. The default location that is listed is:


%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\Shell.dll


Customizing Vista Icons

To access the Windows Vista icons for Documents, Pictures, Favorites and Videos plus a bunch more, put the following in the “Look for items in this file" field:


%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\Imageres.dll


Then hit enter on your keyboard and voila, more choices for icons, including the default icons for Documents, Pictures, Favorites and Videos.

{ gallery }imageres{ /gallery }