kepo-ing Zz85

Someone asked me about changing icons, for example those on your windows icons, perhaps to match your style or relieve the boredom of your old icons.

Here’s a link where you can find free nice icons to download.

From MSDN,
Creating Windows XP Icons (Windows XP Technical Articles)
Design and create colorful and dynamic icons for Windows XP using a vector program, such as FreeHand, Illustrator, or Photoshop.

Customizing Icons

A quick search at snapfile/webattack to find related software for designing icons.

Snapfiles Freeware for Icon Tools

ActivIcons - a freeware to customize Windows icons

“CHANGING DESKTOP ICONS
Getting tired of the same old icons on your desktop? Pre-made icons are often embedded in the DLL and EXE files that Windows and other programs install on your hard drive. Peek into these files to see whether they contain any icons, and if so, use them on your desktop shortcuts. To change a desktop icon, right-click on the shortcut and choose Properties from the context menu. Click the Shortcut tab and then click the Change Icon button. The filename in which the current icon is found is shown at the top of the dialog box, while a gallery of the icons available in that file is shown below it. To use one of those icons, select it and click OK.

To search for more icons, click the Browse button. Select a DLL, EXE, or ICO file and click Open to display the icons available in that file (if there are no icons, you’ll receive a prompt). To get you started, check out “pifmgr.dll” and “shell32.dll” in the \windows\system folder on your hard drive (where “windows” is the folder in which Windows is installed). These files contain dozens of attractive icons to liven up your desktop.”

To really get some real useful software, (esp. if you pay) see Stardock and other line of products. IconPackager is the software for swapping your icons quickly easily.