[Windows Only] Since most applications come with nice icons already embedded in them, I rarely need to create or edit icons. Once in awhile, I do need an icon editor, and I recently discovered that IcoFX is a great tool for that and more. The main reason I decided to try it was that it’s available as a portable app.

I downloaded a zip file containing IcoFX and extracted it into a folder on my flash drive.

I fired up IcoFX, and within 2 minutes I had created my first icon. I was astounded by how easy it was.

The IcoFX interface is easy to use and very stylish. It’s image editing tools include everything you find in Windows Paint, but it also has the tools you need to create gradients, transparency and much more.

In addition to letting you create icons by hand, you can drop images into the editor, and it will walk you through converting the image into an icon.

When you dig into the Tools menu, you’ll find that you can:

* Convert Windows icons to Mac
* Convert Mac icons to Windows
* Extract icons from EXE and DLL files
* Create and manage ICL icon libraries
* Create compressed PNG icons for Vista/Seven
* Change the icons in EXE files

If you need help, there are several tutorials on the home site:
http://icofx.ro/tutorials/tutorial1.html

IcoFX download page: (Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7)
http://icofx.ro/downloads.html

If you need some background information on Windows icons, I’ve written a couple of tutorials for you.

How to Change the Icon for a File Extension or File Type
How to Open Up or Edit an ICO file or Icon Library

We’ve also covered several free apps that help you deal with icons.

Techie Buzz Verdict:

IcoFX is a great tool for quickly creating and editing icons. I like the fact that it’s small, portable and completely free. It may not be a must haveapplication, but I can definitely recommend it.

Techie Buzz Rating: 4/5 (Excellent)

If you are sick and tired of seeing the same icons in Windows explorer, you can change it to a custom icon of your choice. This tutorial explains how you can change the icons of Windows drives using an applicaton.

How to change Windows Drive icons with a Freeware Application

My Drive icon can change the Windows icons in three easy steps.

1. Download My Drive icon. It’s a portable application and thus require no installation.

2. Start the application and select the drive for which you wish to change the icon.

3. Browse to the icon file and hit Apply Changes.

That’s it. The Windows drive icon will be changed to your chosen icon file. You can check iconarchive for a wide variety of free icons. (also read: Get Automatic Drive icons on your desktop)

The application works with Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

How to Change Windows Drive Icons Without Using Any Software

You can change the drive’s icon without using any third party tools. Following are the steps involved:

1. Go to the root directory of a drive and paste the icon file. For example: if you want to change the icon of C drive, paste the icon file in C:\
2. Rename the icon file to Driveicon.ico.
3. Open notepad and paste the following lines:

[autorun]
ICON=Driveicon.ico

4. Save the file as Autorun.inf. Remember to save it as All filesand not as a text document.
5. Execute the autorun file and restart your computer. The Windows drive icon will be replaced with your chosen icon.

Techie-Buzz Verdict

The application does the job perfectly and it is compatible with Windows Xp, Vista and Windows 7.

Techie-Buzz Rating: 5/5 (Perfect).

Most of you are familiar with icons since you see them every time you use a PC. An ICO file is an image file that contains the small picture that you see as an icon. Icons are usually associated with files or actions on your PC. Icons make it easier to identify file types by simply looking at the icon.

How Can I Open (view) an ICO file?

If you wish to open or view the little picture in an ICO file, double clicking an ICO file will most often open in the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer (XP) or Windows Photo Viewer (Vista, Win7) so that you can see it in more detail.

If you have a collection of ICO files, I’ve found that it’s often just as easy to open the folder that the ICO files are in then select the “Thumbnail” view or the “Tiles” view in WinXP or the large icon view in Vista/Win7.

If double clicking on an ICO file does not result in it opening up in a viewer, you can restore it’s default actions. You can also find out how to chose your own default application to openICO files.

One more thing I’ll share with you before moving on is that you can download tons of free high quality icons from the net.

How Can I Edit an ICO File?

On most PCs, the default editor for an ICO (icon) file is the ever present MS Paint application. Right clicking on an ICO file and choosing Editwill usually open an icon in MS Paint.

MS Paint is a very basic graphics editor and it is definitely not a good application for editing icons. Paint’s biggest problem is that it cannot set transparent areas. I have also seen cases where an ICO file saved by Paint is not recognized as an icon by other applications.

Here I have listed some of the best free icon editors:

Greenfish

IcoFX

@icon sushi

IconArt

Portable Icon Editors

Gimp

Here are a few tutorials showing you how to use icon editors:

Creating large icons with Greenfish

IcoFX video tutorial #1

IcoFX video tutorial #2

Tutorials from the author of IcoFX

Create large Vista/Win7 icons with icon sushi

IconArt video tutorial

Creating Icons with Gimp

45 icon design tutorials

How Can I Create My Own Ico Libraries?

Icons are normally thought of as ICO files, but they are also included in icon libraries in the form of EXE, DLL or ICL files. There are quite a few programs that will allow you to create or manage existing icon libraries on your computer. Below are links to two icon editors that I mentioned earlier which handle libraries nicely. This makes them an “all-in-one” tool for dealing with icons.

Greenfish Icon Editor

IcoFX – IcoFX library tutorial

Do you have more questions about icons and ICO files?

How Can I Restore the Default ICO File Behavior?

How Can I Change Windows Default Desktop Icons?

How Can I Change the Icon for a File Extension or File Type?

Browse And Download Tons Of Free High Quality Icons at IconArchive

You can get thousands of icons on the web. But what if you want to create your own icon? Now you don’t need to worry as you can create your own customized icon with SimplyIcon. It can create icons of 128 x 128, 32 x 32, 24 x 24, and 16 x 16 size.

SimplyIcon is easy to use and completely portable. You can carry it anywhere on your USB stick. You can create icons with any image of your choice. If you want to create an icon of 128×128 size, then your source image should be more than 128×128 pixels.

To create your own icon just drag-and-drop the image into SimplyIcon’s window area and your image will be converted within seconds. You can’t do advanced editing with this software. But if you are looking for a basic software just for creating a customized icon, this program is highly recommended.

[ Download SimplyIcon ] via. How To Geek

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 Icondialog.

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

It will show the current icon associated with Text files. Click the Browsebutton to select a new icon.

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

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

Click the Save Iconbutton and you’ll see this message.
The settings for Text Documentwere successfully changed

Finally, click Doneand 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.

Are you looking for free icons to be used on your website, or are you looking for high quality for your desktop. Browsing and searching them on the Internet is not that easy, so having a place to find all the icons in one place definitely helps.

Related: 6 Places to download high quality wallpapers.

IconArchive is definitely one of the best places to find high quality icons in one place for websites and your desktop including Windows icons, Mac icons and Linux icons.

The best part of IconArchive is that, all of the icons are neatly categorized making it easier to browse and find the type of icons you are looking for.

IconArchive currently hosts over 19,400 icons in 707 sets from 169 icon authors. Icons can be used for Windows (XP, Vista, etc.), Macintosh (OSX, OS) and Linux (as PNG Files). The list is bound to grow with newer icons being submitted everyday.

So the next time you want to find some icons, head to IconArchive and you will definitely find the icons you are looking for.

IconArchive