System Icons tend to be customised via the registry and so a .reg file could achieve that. Some of the system icons are stored in reg entries that are accessible only by TrustedInstaller and so would need lower registry permission entries to access
Folder icons are customised with desktop.ini files in the respective folders themselves. These are frequently locked by the system as well such as Program Files and Windows. There are ways around most of them though.
System icons are resources within, for example, dlls. They are not held in the registry. For example, I customise some 77 icons in imageres.dll programatically to get (e.g.)
If I repair my system, imageres.dll is replaced, and my icons by standard Win 10 icons.
Of course, that's far from the only file containing icons- most exe's and many dlls do.
I realised i mis-typed after seeing your reply, i meant system folder icons. (I realise not all are customisable)
FOUND IT!
Change folder icon or color by one mouse click. Mark folders!
The feature(s) I've been looking for are buried and you have to purchase the pro version (search for a promo code discount to save $3.5 bucks) but: I've been putting it the test this afternoon and it works! You can also drag and drop (after a windows search) all folders with a common name (like: Windows) and assign a common icon to them all...all at once. You can also apply a common icon to all sub-folders in one click.
Quote
