Microsoft is changing the legacy icons of its popular operating system. Some of these changes have already hit classic Windows 10 apps like Mail and CalculatorNext, new icons for the File Explorer folders will appear.
If you love the look and want to try out the new icons, you have two options. First, you can install the Windows Insider Beta that comes with these built-in changes. You need Windows 10 Preview Build 21343, which you get when you sign up for the Windows Insider Program (through your Settings app> Update & security). Make sure you choose the dev channel for your releases. This means faster access to updated functions at the expense of a certain system stability.
But I wouldn’t be using the dev channel for my primary PC just in case. Icons are nifty and all but not worth the potential trouble if or when the build starts to work. Fortunately, there is another easy way to get these updated icons: install them yourself.
First, download the icons from this helpful link (Courtesy of the Reddit user Random_Vandalwho extracted them directly from the operating system. mirror Here If that link doesn’t work anymore) Put them in a folder on your system that you’d like to keep forever. There are a lot of them – 662 in total – but they only take up 36MB of disk space.
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Then navigate to your user folder, usually C: users [your name]. Right click Click on any user folder whose icon you want to change, e.g. B. Downloads and click characteristics. click on To adjust Click the Change Icon tab, then click:
Click “Browse” and find the icon you want from the massive folder you just created. The ones that match the main picture in this post are:
- Desktop: imageres-175.ico
- Documents: shell32-127.ico
- Downloads: imageres-176.ico
- Music: shell32-129.ico
- Images: shell32-128.ico
- Video: shell32-130.ico
Repeat the process for all (or some) of the home folders that you want to customize as necessary. And if this simple trick doesn’t produce the results you want, you may have to jump into that Windows registry make additional adjustments. At the very least, this is how the new icons should appear in File Explorer under “This PC”. However, be careful about your changes as the registry is the only place you don’t want to screw anything up.
