How to change the Desktop and Contacts user folder icons?

jlan

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​Customising user folder icons has always been a bit tricky. All user folders apart from the desktop and contacts user folders can be changed via the customize tab in properties when the user folder is accessed from my computer (i.e. not from the desktop).

To customise the desktop and contacts user folders requires a registry change. For Windows 7 this is explained here User Folders - Change Default Icon - Windows 7 Help Forums, and the necessary .reg files are also provided. This method actually worked for me too in Windows 8. However, after the newest updates, the icons I had added this way have disappeared, and so has the customize tab which I had added via the .reg files available on the page mentioned above. Repeating the reg change would not make a difference. The newest updates must have changed something in the Windows 8 registry to that effect (through those updates all other user folders also lost the custom icon I had previously added, but I was able to easily restore them, as the customize tab of these user folders didn't disappear).

Hence my question: how to now change the folder icons for the desktop and contacts user folders in windows 8?

Since all my other user folders are customised in a particular style, leaving the default icon for the desktop and contacts folders looks a bit weird...
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win8

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1.1 Pro with Media Center
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Gateway
    CPU
    AMD K140 Cores 2 Threads 2 Name AMD K140 Package Socket FT1 BGA Technology 40nm
    Motherboard
    Manufacturer Gateway Model SX2110G (P0)
    Memory
    Type DDR3 Size 8192 MBytes DRAM Frequency 532.3 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI AMD Radeon HD 7310 Graphics
    Sound Card
    AMD High Definition Audio Device Realtek High Definition Audio USB Audio Device
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Name 1950W on AMD Radeon HD 7310 Graphics Current Resolution 1366x768 pixels Work Resolution 1366x76
    Screen Resolution
    Current Resolution 1366x768 pixels Work Resolution 1366x768 pixels
    Hard Drives
    AMD K140
    Cores 2
    Threads 2
    Name AMD K140
    Package Socket FT1 BGA
    Technology 40nm
    Specification AMD E1-1200 APU with Radeon HD Graphics
    Family F
    Extended Family 14
    Model 2
    Extended Model 2
    Stepping 0
    Revision ON-C0
    Instruction
    Browser
    Opera 24.0
    Antivirus
    Avast Internet Security
​Customising user folder icons has always been a bit tricky. All user folders apart from the desktop and contacts user folders can be changed via the customize tab in properties when the user folder is accessed from my computer (i.e. not from the desktop).

To customise the desktop and contacts user folders requires a registry change. For Windows 7 this is explained here User Folders - Change Default Icon - Windows 7 Help Forums, and the necessary .reg files are also provided. This method actually worked for me too in Windows 8. However, after the newest updates, the icons I had added this way have disappeared, and so has the customize tab which I had added via the .reg files available on the page mentioned above. Repeating the reg change would not make a difference. The newest updates must have changed something in the Windows 8 registry to that effect (through those updates all other user folders also lost the custom icon I had previously added, but I was able to easily restore them, as the customize tab of these user folders didn't disappear).

Hence my question: how to now change the folder icons for the desktop and contacts user folders in windows 8?

Since all my other user folders are customised in a particular style, leaving the default icon for the desktop and contacts folders looks a bit weird...

jlan, did you ever find something that worked?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Asus
No, from what I know, this can only be done with third-party software for now (don't know about Windows 10, haven't upgraded yet). Microangelo suggested above is a good program. There are other, free ones, but which work less well.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Win8
Super simple.
1. open desktop.ini in your contacts or desktop folder with notepad.
2. save it as desktop(WindowsDefaultIcon).ini
3. save it again as desktop.ini
4. copy the icon you want into the contacts folder (Suggested name "Z KEEP HERE DONT RENAME [filename].ico" (use greenfish icon editor to make a custom one if you want)
5. while saving, copy the filename
6. in your open desktop.ini file, replace the text after "IconResource=" with "%userprofile%\Contacts\[filename.ico],0"

That's it!
explorer contacts, desktop folder icon-manual edit desktop.ini vlp @2017-04-16, 15_40_12.png
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    8.1
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Hp Pavilion touchscreen
    CPU
    AMD
    Memory
    16 GB/1 TB
    Browser
    ie
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