Customize Vista Desktop Icons [How To]

By Rich on January 29, 2009 (3 Comments)

There are many ways you can customize your desktop icons: you can resize, change, or even remove them. Learn how to customize your icons in this guide.

This guide is included as part of the Windows Guides Customize Vista Desktop and Start Menu Series. Please visit the main page if you would like to learn why this guide may be useful.

Customizing Desktop Icons

To customize your icons, do the following:
1. Right click the desktop and select Personalize
2. Click Change Desktop Icons

desktop icons 01 Customize Vista Desktop Icons [How To]

Here you can do the following:

Select the icons you want to be shown on the Desktop
Change the appearance of an icon by selecting it, and clicking Change Icon. In the Change Icon dialog box that appears, click the image you want to replace that of the selected icon and press OK.

Change the size, order, and alignment of your desktop icons by right clicking a blank spot on the Desktop, selecting view, and specifying the size and alignment of the icons or whether you want the icons to be shown on the Desktop or hidden.

You may also resize the icon size on the desktop by clicking a blank area on the desktop, holding the CTRL key, and scrolling your mouse wheel.

This guide comes from the ‘Windows Vista – Customization Manual’ [Download a copy now]. The customization manual runs over the basics of customizing your Windows Vista machine to make it more personal. This guide is free of charge to all www.mintywhite.com readers.

About Rich

Rich is the owner and creator of Windows Guides; he spends his time breaking things on his PC so he can write how-to guides to fix the problems he creates.

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Comments

Anne

BLANK DESKTOP ICONS
This is not super-urgent, just annoying and I would like to fix it.
In Vista HP, the last few times I have added a shortcut to the desktop the icon has been blank. I cannot change it through
1) control panel Appearance and Personalisation/Change desktop icon
2) right-clicking the item on the desktop or desktop itself
3) right-clicking the item on the Start Menu and clicking Change Icon
Seems to me this used to work but it doesn’t now. I can go through the process, but the icon on the desktop remains unchanged.
All help gratefully received!
Anne

BLANK DESKTOP ICONS
This is not super-urgent, just annoying and I would like to fix it.
In Vista HP, the last few times I have added a shortcut to the desktop the icon has been blank. I cannot change it through
1) control panel Appearance and Personalisation/Change desktop icon
2) right-clicking the item on the desktop or desktop itself
3) right-clicking the item on the Start Menu and clicking Change Icon
Seems to me this used to work but it doesn’t now. I can go through the process, but the icon on the desktop remains unchanged.
All help gratefully received!
Anne

BLANK DESKTOP ICONS
This is not super-urgent, just annoying and I would like to fix it.
In Vista HP, the last few times I have added a shortcut to the desktop the icon has been blank. I cannot change it through
1) control panel Appearance and Personalisation/Change desktop icon
2) right-clicking the item on the desktop or desktop itself
3) right-clicking the item on the Start Menu and clicking Change Icon
Seems to me this used to work but it doesn’t now. I can go through the process, but the icon on the desktop remains unchanged.
All help gratefully received!

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