Changing Explorer Ribbon icons

username1 · 08 May 2016

Hello,

I'm struggling to change some of the Eplorer's Ribbon icons. I've successfully changed icons for:
This PC –> Ribbon —> System tab –> Open Settings and System properties. Those icons were located in shell32.dll

1. However I absolutely cannot change icon for This PC –> Ribbon —> System –> Access media
I found a similar icon in imageres.dll and replaced it without any success: the drop-down icon in "Connect to a media server" changed but not the main one.

2. Another icon I cannot find is on Sharing tab of Ribbon –> Stop sharing (lock symbol).

3. And last one is on This PC, select internal drive –> Ribbon –> Manage tab –> BitLocker

The reason I wanna do it is @ 200% DPI scaling those icons look damaged and pixelated or just out of place by design.

Here's a quick temporary screenshot of progress (random icons for testing purpose applied):

Changing Explorer Ribbon icons-capture.png

Please help!

dalchina · 08 May 2016

You might have some luck with 'Customiser God'
CustomizerGod

Note it lists explorer ribbon icons.

However note you will lose these on each major upgrade build or if you do an in-place upgrade repair install, and possibly if you run sfc /scannow, so be prepared.

username1 · 10 May 2016

Thanks buddy dalchina, I've already tried this piece of software before 'reshacking'. It's a very poor software in terms of Windows 10 support. Unfortunately it's not capable of changing Ribbon things at all

.
I've tried changing in latest Insider Preview: same! Help. Maybe flushing some hidden icons cache will work?

username1 · 26 Nov 2016

OK, I managed to fix everything including "Stop sharing" icon.

Here's a brief guide o the other icons, tested on the latest Windows 10 with Anniversary Update.

Fix Access media icon in Windows Explorer Ribbon
0. Run Resource Hacker
1. Open Windows\system32\imageres.dll; ICON 2518
2. Save as 2518.ICO
3. Open 2518.ICO in Paint and save to 24-bit BMP 2518.BMP
4. Open Windows\system32\ExplorerFrame.dll
5. Replace BITMAP 60159, 60160 with 2518.BMP
6. Save ExplorerFrame.dll to Desktop
7. Rename Windows\system32\ExplorerFrame.dll to Windows\system32\ExplorerFrame.dll-
8. Copy User\Desktop\ExplorerFrame.dll to Windows\system32
9. Sign out and sign back in

For other icons copy this to Notepad and save as "Hackerman.reg" file, then run REGEDIT.EXE and edit your permissions for the following keys as described in this guide (easy and fast).

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
;ChangeExplorerShellSystemPropertiesIcon
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CommandStore\shell\Windows.SystemProperties]
"Icon"="imageres.dll,-149"
;ChangeExplorerShellShareIcon
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CommandStore\shell\Windows.RibbonShare]
"Icon"="shell32.dll,-48"
;ChangeShellAdvancedSecurityIcon
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CommandStore\shell\Windows.RibbonPermissionsDialog]
"Icon"="imageres.dll,-5364"

Lastly the "Stop sharing" icon. It seems Windows Explorer has sort of bug with updating it. So I cannot say for sure what change fixed it for me: ICON GROUPS 120, 121 of NTSHRUI.DLL or ICON GROUP 31059 of IEFRAME.DLL. Both files can be found in Windows\System32 folder and the procedure is the same as with EXPLORERFRAME.DLL. Icon updated only after several reboots.