Creating a Custom Icon

The first step in creating a custom icon for the desktop is to determine the size of the icons currently being used.   To do this, right-click a blank portion of the desktop and select Properties from the context menu that appears.  In Display Properties select the Appearance tab and click the "Advanced" button.  From the drop-down menu in the Item: block select Icon.  On the screen that opens the current size of the icons will be shown as seen here:

Once the icon size is known the user needs an application which is capable of saving files in the proper format for use as a Windows icon (*.ico).   An excellent choice for this is the freeware program Irfanview, which can be downloaded from here.

When Irfanview is installed, open the program and go to File|Open.  Browse to the image to be used as the icon and open it.  When it is displayed in Irfanview go to Image|Resize/Resample.  The window that opens will display the current size of the image.  Make sure that "pixels" is selected under Units in the "Select new size" box.  Enter the desired size of the icon determined in Display Properties in either the width or height box (since the icon will be square, the other entry will be changed to match it), then go to File|Save As, browse to the folder where the new icon will be saved, and select ICO-Windows Icon as the file type from the drop down menu.

To use the new icon, right-click the icon on the desktop to be replaced, select Properties from the context menu and on the dialog that opens click "Change icon."  Browse to the folder where the new icon was saved, the folder will open with all the *.ico files displayed.  Click to select the one desired (if this is the first custom icon created it will probably be the only one), then click Apply the OK.  The new icon will replace the old one on the desktop.