It is very easy to change the icon associated with a File Type once you learn the trick. Below I’ll show you how to change the icon for the Text file type. Windows will let you do this, but it’s not often easy. I recommend that you try out a small free stand-alone program called “Default Programs Editor” that makes it simple to change the icons for file types.

Default Programs Editor (DPE)

You can download DPE here. (requires Microsoft .Net Framework 3.5)
If you don’t want to or can’t use .Net Framework, then this freebie, File Association Editor, will also work for you.

DPE will download as a zip file. You’ll need to extract the contents of the zip file to a folder of your choice. Start the program by double clicking “Default Programs Editor.exe”. Then click “File Type Settings”.

Choose the “Icon” dialog.

Use the search field to find the file type you want. In this case I typed in “txt” to find the file type for text files.

It will show the current icon associated with Text files. Click the “Browse” button to select a new icon.

Now it shows the location of the current icon. Click “Browse” once more, to go to an icon file or library you need. I selected the “shell32.dll” library which is in the Windows\System32 folder.

Just for fun, I chose the red circle with a crossbar through it.

Click the “Save Icon” button and you’ll see this message.
The settings for “Text Document” were successfully changed

Finally, click “Done” and you’ll be able to see that all your chosen files have a new icon.

Here’s what my text files look like now.

I don’t think I’ll be keeping this icon for my text files, but I hope you get the idea.

Be careful out there and have a nice day.