Good day.
Today I have a short article on customizing the appearance of Windows - how to change the icon when connecting a USB flash drive (or other media, such as an external hard drive) to a computer. Why is it necessary?
First of all, it's beautiful! Secondly, when you have several flash drives and you don’t remember what you have on which one - the displayed icon or icon - they quickly allow you to navigate. For example, on a flash drive with games, you can put an icon from some game, and on a flash drive with documents, you can put a Word icon. Thirdly, when a flash drive is infected with a virus, your icon will be replaced with a standard one, which means you will immediately notice something is wrong and take action.
I’ll write down the steps on how to change the icon (by the way, you only need to do 2 actions!).
1) Creating an icon
First, find the picture you want to put on your flash drive.
The found picture for the flash drive icon.
Online services for creating icons from jpg, png, bmp image files, etc.:
http://www.icoconverter.com/
http://www.coolutils.com/ru/online/PNG-to-ICO
http://online-convert.ru/convert_photos_to_ico.html
I will use the first service in my example. First, upload your image there, then choose how many pixels our icon will be: specify the size 64 by 64 pixels.
Online ICO converter. Converting an image to an icon.
Actually, the icon was created on this. You need to copy it to your flash drive. .
You can also use Gimp or IrfanView to create an icon. But in my opinion, if you need to make 1-2 icons, it’s faster to use online services…
2) Creating an autorun.inf file
This file autorun.inf needed to auto-start the flash drive, including to display the icon. It is a plain text file, though with the inf extension. In order not to describe how to create such a file, I will give a link to my file:
You need to copy it to your flash drive.
By the way, note that the name of the icon file is specified in autorun.inf after the word "icon=". In my case, the icon is called favicon.ico and in the file autorun.inf opposite the line "icon=" is also the name! They must match, otherwise the icon will not be shown!
icon=favicon.ico
Actually, if you have already copied 2 files to the USB flash drive: the icon itself and the autorun.inf file, then just remove and insert the USB flash drive into the USB port: the icon should change!
Windows 8 - a flash drive with a pacman image ....
Important!
If your flash drive was already bootable, then it will contain approximately the following lines:
open=setup.exe
icon=setup.exe open=sources\SetupError.exe x64
icon=sources\SetupError.exe,0
If you want to change the icon on it, just the line icon=setup.exe change to icon=favicon.ico.
That's all for today, have a great weekend everyone!
How to change the icons (icons) of system drives in the windows 10 operating system, or restore them. Not so long ago I installed a program for testing hard drives, recovering bad (BAD) sectors of the HDD. After deleting it, for some reason, icons disappeared on my computer (icons) local drives.
Hi friends! Connected Max. Once on a blog, I already wrote a similar article on how to replace system drive icons with third-party ones, in this article I used the 7Drive Icons utility, you can see, but this program threw me such an error, at ten.
The screenshot shows that the error is in the registry. I searched the Internet for a solution to what can be done in this situation, I really did not find anything. Here is a screenshot of my missing icons (icons), two I have already restored (left).
In short, get to the point. The free utility Eight Drive Icon Changer, which actually helped me with this problem, is used to replace system icons with your own, or those that are already in system resources. The utility is free, easy to use and does not require installation on a computer, the interface is English. You can download this miracle by this link.
Once downloaded, extract the archive and run the Eight Drive Icon Changer.exe file.
To restore local drive icons ( I have this drive E, and F), click on the inscription C:\Fixid (NTFS), then select the drive you want to restore the icon from the drop-down menu.
Then tap on the "Restore" button, in the window that opens, click "Yes", in the next window click "OK".
To replace the icons with your own, select the desired drive letter, then click on the "Load" button, then specify the path to the desired icon (icon), to do this, click on the three dots at the bottom of the window on the right. Then click on the "Change" button, confirm "Yes", "OK".
Here is what I got as a result.
Icons for the program in ICO format here, here icons in PNG format. To convert from PNG to ICO, you can use this free online service.
The free Eight Drive Icon Changer utility allows you to easily change the default drive icons in the Windows operating system with a few mouse clicks. This concludes my short post. Good luck everyone, bye bye.
Respectfully,
Icons of disks and flash drives begin to become boring over time, so the question arises of changing the appearance. In this article, we will help you figure out how to easily do this.
In Windows operating systems, manually changing the icon will not be such a difficult task, even for those who have just started getting to know the computer. Below are instructions on how to change the flash drive icon, icon, hard drive and DVD in Windows 7-10 operating systems to whatever you wish.
Instructions on how to change the icon of a flash drive or disk in Windows
Now we actually start with the process of replacing the icon manually. We need the icon file itself with the .ICO extension. They can be easily found on the Internet. A huge number of such icons can be found on sites such as iconarchive.com. Or you can convert your image to ICO using an online service.
At the moment, there are 2 ways to replace icons in Windows:
- Using the registry
- Using the autorun.inf file
The method with the registry is more complicated, but with autorun.inf it will be easier.
Replacing the icon of a flash drive or disk using autorun.inf
This method involves copying two files to the media - the icon and the autorun.inf file. The icon will be assigned to this media even if you insert it into another computer.
Replacing the icon of a flash drive or disk using the Windows registry
This method has its own characteristics. The thing is that no matter what is connected under the letter - a flash drive, hard drive, or memory card, the icon that is set for this drive letter in the registry will always be displayed.
Now we reboot the Windows operating system and enjoy the new icons.
Do you have any further questions? Write them in the comments about what you did or vice versa!
Changing disk icons is just one of many ways Windows icon settings. You can even create high resolution icons from your own images if you can't find other icons you like.
We have prepared a description of two ways changing drive icons in Windows. The first method uses a free third-party application that can be used to change the icon for an individual drive. The second method involves a few quick changes to the Windows Registry.
Change individual drive icon
The easiest way to change the drive icon is to use the free Drive Icon Changer tool. It was originally written for Windows Vista but also works effectively on Windows 7, 8 and 10.
After downloading and extracting the program, you must run it with administrator rights. Right click on the EXE file and select Run as administrator. The first time you run the tool, it may ask you to install some files - let it do it.
Once launched, you will see that Drive Icon Changer has only one screen where you select the drive you want to change the icon for and then find the ICO file you want to use. Additional settings are not available. Select the disk, find the ICO file and click the Save button. In our example, we are using icons from the IconArchive website.
You will receive a notification that the icon has been successfully changed.
You must then restart your computer for the changes to take effect if you selected an internal drive. If you have selected a removable drive, you can simply unplug it and plug it back in.
After restarting, you should see a new drive icon in File Explorer.
Drive Icon Changer works by creating two hidden files in the root directory of any drive you choose. One of them is a copy of the ICO file, which is renamed to Drive.ico, and the other is a simple Autorun.inf file containing only the following lines:
ICON=Drive.ico
So if you like, you can just create an Autorun.inf yourself with notepad, copy the ICO file to disk and rename it to match the entry in Autorun.inf, restart your computer (or unplug and replug the drive if it's removable), and the disk icon will change. However, working with the Drive Icon Changer tool is a bit easier and faster.
If you want to undo the changes you've made to the disk, all you have to do is delete these two files.
Changing the disk icon through the registry
Why extra steps if there is a Drive Icon Changer? The point is that you may have some autorun restrictions that prevent you from using the first method, or you may want to change the icon used for the optical drive. Perhaps you don't like the idea of allowing an app to do things that you can do yourself. Or maybe you're just curious to see where this is in the registry. Anyway, these changes are very easy to make and they work on Windows 7, 8 and 10.
Standard Warning A: Registry Editor is a powerful tool, misuse can make your system unstable or even render it inoperable.
Open the registry editor by clicking the search button and typing regedit. Press Enter to open the Registry Editor and give it permission to make changes to your computer.
In the Registry Editor, use the left sidebar to navigate to the following section:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\DriveIcons
Then create a new key inside the DriveIcons key. Right-click the DriveIcons key and select Create → Chapter. Name the new key using the letter of the drive whose icon you want to change. In our example, we are changing the G drive icon.
Note A: As you probably noticed, this method differs from using Drive Icon Changer in that instead of using the autoplay feature, you are actually assigning the icon to a drive letter. For this reason, you will not be able to get the result for a removable drive. This is especially true if you use multiple drives and the letters change frequently. To get around this you can assign a static letter to a removable drive.
Now we need to create another new key, this time inside the drive letter we just created. Right click section G and select Create → Chapter. Name the new key DefaultIcon.
Select the new DefaultIcon key in the left pane, and then double-click the (default) value in the right pane to open the properties window.
In the Edit String Value window, enter the full path (surrounded by quotation marks) for the ICO file you want to use as an icon in the Value field, and then click OK .
The changes should take effect immediately, so you won't need to restart your computer. Open File Explorer, or refresh the window if it's already open, and you'll see the new disk icon.
If you want to undo the changes, just go back to the DriveIcons section in the Registry Editor and delete the created section.
How to change the disk icon or change the flash drive icon in Windows? In the Windows operating system, drives and connected removable devices are displayed with standard icons.
If the manufacturer has made a special icon on the device connected to the computer (flash drive or external hard drive), then in this case, Explorer will not display a standard icon, but an icon created by the device manufacturer.
Why do I need to change the icons of flash drives or disks on my computer? In the case of a hard drive or a local drive, there is no special need to change the icon of the drive, and changing the icons for connected USB flash drives is in some cases desirable.
When connecting several flash drives to a computer at the same time, it can be difficult for the user to immediately distinguish one flash drive from another. Flash drives with different icons are easily distinguishable from each other, this will save a little time spent searching for the right removable device and increase work efficiency.
How to change the disk icon or change the flash drive icon from the standard image in Windows to another icon? In the article I will tell you how you can change the disk icon, how to change the flash drive icon on a computer in the Windows operating system. This method works the same in Windows 10, Windows 8.1 (Windows 8), Windows 7.
Preparing the image and autorun.inf file
To change the icon of a hard (local) disk or a flash drive (external hard disk), you will need two files: a picture and the “autorun.inf” file.
First of all, you need an image in the ".ico" format with a resolution of 128x128 or 256x256 pixels. The finished image can be found on the Internet or made by yourself in a graphics editor. Create an image in "JPG" or "PNG" format, and then convert it to "ICO" format using a converter program or an online converter.
Now we need to create the "autorun.inf" file, which will be needed to display the icon. Open Notepad or another text editor and paste the following command into it:
ICON=icon_name.ico
In this entry, replace "icon_name" with your own, which will be displayed in Windows Explorer. The icon name can consist of numbers, letters, words. Save the file to your desktop or other convenient location.
When saving the file, in the Explorer dialog box, in the "File name" field, insert "autorun.inf" (without quotes), in the "File type" select "All files", and then click on the "Save" button.
The "autorun" file has the extension "inf". The files are ready to use.
First, let's change the icon of the USB flash drive, and then I will tell you how to change the icon of the disk (hard or local) on the computer.
How to change flash drive icon
Let's see how to change the flash drive icon from a standard image to a custom image. In this image, the Windows 7 operating system Explorer displays the standard removable disk (flash drive) icon: "Removable Disk (F:)".
Prepare an image in the ".ico" format and an "autorun.inf" file for the flash drive.
Copy the files to the root of the disk (flash drive). You need to move the files to the root directory (directly to the flash drive itself), and not somewhere in a folder on the flash drive.
First, disconnect the USB flash drive from the computer (remove it from the connector), and then reconnect the USB drive to the computer.
In the Explorer window, you will see that the flash drive has changed its icon to the new one that is selected for this device.
How to change the disk icon in Windows
In order to change the icon of the hard or local disk, you must follow the same steps. Prepare an image in the "ICO" format and the file "autorun.inf", in which write down the name of the icon prepared for the hard drive.
I want to change the disk icon on the Local Disk "E:" (this is a separate hard disk) of my computer in the Windows 10 operating system. Changing the hard disk icon in Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 (Windows 8) works in a similar way.
In this image, Local Disk "E:" has a standard icon. It also shows that a flash drive is connected to the computer, on which I changed the icon in Windows 7.
Copy the image in the ".ico" format and the file "autorun.inf" to the root of the disk (to the disk whose icon you want to change), in my case, to the Local disk "E:".
Enter the properties of these files (right-click on each file, select "Properties" in the context menu), add the attributes (check the checkboxes) "Read-only" and "Hidden".
Then restart your computer. After booting up the PC, you will see that the hard (local) disk icon has changed to a different icon.
Article Conclusions
The user can change the icon (icon) displayed in Explorer on the disk (hard or local) of the computer, or change the icon (icon) of the flash drive displayed in Explorer after connecting a removable device.
