Windows 10: Changing taskbar icons?

hey everyone new to this forum and windows in general (i come from a mac and than linux background).
I was wondering if its possible to change somehow the firefox and spotify icons to match those of the default
windows task bar icons so it looks more uniform? in linux changing icons is easy as pie...is it possible for windows?

:)

 

Taskbar changes

Hi Wilf,

There are some Windows 10 settings that reverts to default after an update.

In line with this, we would like to know the specific settings you'd like to retain whenever there is an update in Windows 10.

Meanwhile, you may check the "Lock all taskbars" option from the
Taskbar itself, if it is checked. If not, enable it by clicking the said option after right-clicking the
Taskbar.

Let us know if the issue persists after enabling the "Lock all taskbars" option.

Regards.

 

Taskbar changes

Following the latest 'upgrade' to W10 the taskbar has changed from I how I like it. So I reset it to how I like and continued working...

Following a power cycle the Taskbar has changed back to Microsoft defaults. What setting or Flag do set to make sure it doesn't change again?

 

Shift-right click the taskbar icon > properties > Shortcut or customize tab > Change Icon.

If there isnt an option, take headache pills.

 

thanks now where would i be able to get a theme with icons sized for this purpose and
what folder would i put them in ? is there anyway to set a custom theme across the board
like linux? im looking for nice flat uniform icons.

 

Icon size is still handled by windows, nothing to help that atm. However, themes are aplenty, with icons, can be found through google.com. *092

 

Well I like Windows 8.1 icons in notification area (sound, network etc) better that the simplified versions in Windows 10. Is there a way to change the default icons and make them like Windows 8.1 or whatever I like? In Control Panel we can only set which icons remain visible and which are hidden. No option to customize them. Please give more details. If there is a third party utility for that, let us know. This would be the last transformation to make Windows 10 like 7 or 8 which is preferable over the new simplified version of most icons.

By the way I had read elsewhere how to change the default folder icon and make it look 3D like Windows 8. This doesn't apply to Documents, Downloads etc icons, we have to change them separately. Any idea how this is done? I had read about hacking the registry but some settings could not apply to Insider Preview version due to restricted rights. I haven't tried these to the final version. Any utility to do these automatically without messing with the registry?

 

Ok. I made it like this:

 

That didn't answer the question, how we can change the icons. I mean not change which are visible, change the appearance, like putting the Windows 8.1 volume icon in place of the more simplified Windows 10 icon. In your screenshot I don't see any change, except maybe for the battery icon.

 

do you means like this? 30%x

 

I found the solution. You must extract all icons from the appropriate Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 system files. Then you modify the respective Windows 10 system files by replacing the default icons with those you extracted. You can also use any other custom icons you like in ICO, BMP, JPG, GIF or PNG format. One program that can easily replace or extract icons from EXE and DLL files is Customizer God. When you execute it (as administrator of course) in Windows 10, you get a message that Windows 10 are not officially supported yet, but you can manually open the relevant files with CTRL+O. For everyone wanting to try, here is the procedure:

- To change the volume icon you must modify the file SndVolSSO.dll found into C:\Windows\system32.
- To change the network icon (both LAN and WiFi) you must modify the file pnidui.dll found into C:\Windows\system32.
- To change the battery icon you must modify the file batmeter.dll found into C:\Windows\system32.
- To change the default folder, drive etc icons you must modify the file imageres.dll (and maybe shell32.dll) found into C:\Windows\system32. These two are the most difficult as they contain over 100 icons!

1) Copy the original system file to another folder for backup. It will be backup by Customizer God automatically, but it doesn't hurt to do it yourself as well.
2) Copy the respective file from Windows 7 or 8 to your desktop or anywhere handy. TIP: If you have recently upgraded to Windows 10, you can find these files in C:\Windows.old\Windows\system32
3) Open the Windows 7 or 8 file in Customizer God with CTRL+O.
4) Switch view from images to icons, if necessary.
5) Click on the first icon, hold SHIFT and click the last to select them all.
6) Click on the "down" button on bottom right to reveal more controls. Click Extract selected resources and browse to the folder where you want to extract them.
7) Close Customizer God and reopen it (as administrator again).
8) Open the respective Windows 10 file (that with the same filename with the file you extracted the icons from).
9) Click on the icon you want to replace and then click on Change.
10) Browse to the folder you extracted the icons and select the appropriate icon. If you use those from Windows 7 or 8 they have the same number. If you hover mouse over an icon it shows its number. TIP: There is a batch option, you can chose to replace multiple icons, but I would rather do it one-by-one to make sure I put the correct icons and don't accidentally mix them up.
11) After replacing all the icons, just close Customizer God.
12) Logoff and login to see changes.

Warning: You may copy your patched files to another Windows 10 installation to avoid patching again, but it has to be the same architecture (32-bit or 64-bit) or it won't work! The icons for volume and network aren't too many and is safer to patch each time

I also wanted to change the default folder, drive etc icons, so I had to patch imageres.dll and shell32.dll! This was very time-consuming as they are too many icons in these files! But it was worth the trouble! Now I have my Windows 10 installation looking as closer to Windows 8.1 as possible. No more ugly flat icons. Pity that my patched files work only in Windows 10 64-bit. I have to repeat the task for 32-bit Windows, but I don't think I'll bother. Few friends have still 32-bit Windows. I would happily just modify the battery, volume and network icons if they like, not everything.

 

OK so works in some cases. I can change the DVD, hard drive, removable disk icons. The Network Locations shows a Media Player splash for some dumb reason. That isn't in imageres or shell32 or pnidui (which only has a bunch of system tray icons that are already in imageres). The network folder icon is justa blue box, not in imageres as far as I can tell. I have a mounted CD image that shows as the default drive with a big yellow CD sticking out of it. Not in imageres.

BTW it refuses to open shell32.

 

Imageres.dll contains all icons, but not those for network, battery and speaker in notification area. For changing these you must open and modify the relevant DLL file. In case you mixed up the icons, you can repeat the process as follows:

Open Windows 7 or 8.1 version of imageres.dll. Select all icons by clicking the first, holding SHIFT and clicking the last. Click on the down triangle button at bottom right to reveal more actions. Click on Extract selected resources. Browse to a folder to extract all the icons. Close Customizer God and reopen it. Open Windows 10 version of imageres.dll Click the first icon, hold SHIFT and click the last to select all. Click on Change button and browse to the folder with the icons. Every icon will be replaced with the corresponding file having the same number. If there is no such file for an icon, this remains unchanged, but usually there is 1:1 match. Close program, logoff and login to see changes.

 

So, If I only wanted to change Windows 10's WiFi/Ethernet notification tray icons back into Win8's, how would I do that?

 

With every Windows Cumulative Update some icons are restored to default. Usually these include the network/Wi-Fi icons. I use Customizer God (see my earlier posts in this thread) to change them to Windows 8.1 icons. I have extracted the Windows 8.1 icons in a folder (you can do that from Customizer God if you have the respective Windows 8.1 DLLs), open the pnidui.dll (this is for network icons) and then replace the icons with those in the folder.

The files are:

batmeter.dll (battery icons)
imageres.dll (folder and everything else, once changed these usually never are restored)
pnidui.dll (network icons)
sndvolsso.dll (audio icons)
stobject.dll (USB icons)

all are in C:\Windows\system32

If you want you can replace them with the respective Windows 7 icons instead. All you have to do is extract the icons from Windows 7 or 8 DLLs in a folder with the file's name (to identify them easily) and then replace Windows 10 icons with these. Both functions extract/replace are done with Customizer God.