Custom folder icons and backgrounds under Windows XP

Are you tired of having to face the same folder icon and blank background every day? Do you want to change something new? Then let's DIY our own folder icon and background bar!

One, folder icon to change
Friends who use Windows XP will find that there are 3 folders in My Documents, such as my music, my videos, my pictures, and so on, whose icons are different from other folders. The same folders, why are they different? In fact, under these folders there is a hidden file named Desktop.ini, it is because these desktop.ini files exist so that these folder icons can show different effects. The following is an example of a Desktop.ini file in the author's computer, showing it to everyone (Figure 1).

Figure 1 icon desktop.ini file

The folder icon can be changed to the part in the box in Figure 1, and its general format is as follows:

[. ShellClassInfo]

infotip= Icon File Comment

Path to iconfile= icon file

Iconindex= Select the first few icons in the file you want to use

Knowing this, we can edit a Desktop.ini file ourselves so that the folder icon in which it resides becomes the form we want. For example, open Notepad to edit the following:

[. ShellClassInfo]

Iconfile=%programfiles%\windows Media Player\wmplayer.exe

Iconindex=0

When you save as Desktop.ini, you find that the folder icon that it is in has become the icon for Windows Media Player. From then on, the dull and boring folder icon began to become rich and colorful up, how, is not very beautiful?

In fact, in Windows XP, there is another way to achieve this more simply. Right-click the destination folder, open the Properties dialog box, clicking the Customize tab pops up the Change icon for folder Type Destination Folder dialog box (Figure 2) When the folder icon item clicks Change Icon, where the user can select a variety of icons for the folder, and the system default icon file is %systemroot%\system32\shell32.dll, of course, if you're not satisfied with the icons, you can click the Browse button and customize the icon file with the extension. exe,. dll,. ico, and so on.

Figure 2 Icon selection

Essentially, the two methods are the same. In the second approach, the system also generates a Desktop.ini file in the destination folder, which is changed by the Desktop.ini file control icon for the folder.

Two, easy to handle folder background
When you open a folder, the view is a picture of your favorite background rather than Windows default blank, then you feel absolutely better. Is there any way to achieve this effect? Of course.

Open Notepad and edit the following:

[Extshellfolderviews]

[{BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC}]

Iconarea_image= the path to the background picture (such as C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\My Pictures\ Sample Picture \blue Hills.jpg, the picture preferably is JPG or BMP format)

Exit after saving as Desktop.ini. Refresh, and achieve the goal.

Figure 3 Editing the Desktop.ini file

Of course, we can also merge the above two Desktop.ini files (Figure 3), so that you can receive a DIY folder icon and background double effect. I believe you can see such a folder should be much easier!