Page 225 - Windows 10 May 2019 Update The Missing Manual: The Book That Should Have Been in the Box

You can change the actual, inch-tall illustrations that Windows uses to

represent the little icons in your electronic world. You can’t, however, use a
single method to do so; Microsoft has divided up the controls between two
different locations.

Standard Windows icons

First, you can change the icon for some of the important Windows desktop
icons: the Recycle Bin, Documents, and so on. To do so, right-click a blank
spot on the desktop. From the shortcut menu, choose Personalize.

In the resulting window, click Themes in the task pane at the left side; then
click “Desktop icon settings.” You’ll see a collection of those important
Windows icons. Click one and then click Change Icon to choose a
replacement from a collection Microsoft provides. (You haven’t lived until

you’ve made your Recycle Bin look like a giant blue thumbtack!)

Folder or shortcut icons

Ordinarily, when your Explorer window is in Tiles, Content, or a fairly big

Icon view, each folder’s icon resembles what’s in it. You actually see a tiny
photo, music album, or Word document peeking out of the open-folder icon.

This means, however, that the icon may actually change over time, as you

put different things into it. If you’d rather freeze a folder’s icon so it doesn’t
keep changing, you can choose an image that will appear to peek out from
inside that folder.

Note

The following steps also let you change what a particular shortcut icon looks like. Unfortunately,
Windows offers no way to change an actual document’s icon.

Actually, you have two ways to change a folder’s icon. Both begin the same

way: Right-click the folder or shortcut whose icon you want to change.
From the shortcut menu, choose Properties, and then click the Customize
tab. Now you have a choice (Figure 3-9):