How do I change size/color of one or two desktop icons?

[kneehowguys]

When I turn on the computer, I want a few shortcut icons to be very prominent with color and size so I can find them easily and poke them with my finger on the touchscreen.

Question 1 (the title^)

Question 2: In general, if you want to save all the windows you are currently using and be able to open them all up within a few clicks later, what are the best options to do this? So say you have an excel file, a word doc, and some internet browser windows all related to one of your projects and you want to access all of those later without having to find them. What are your options to do this?

 

[kaylagarcia]

You can fastly adjust the size of all icons by pressing right click on desktop and pressing and holding the CTRL key and using the scroll wheel on the mouse.

Desktop Icons - Custom Size - Windows 7 Help Forums

 

[LMiller7]

A basic principle of desktop icons is that they are all the same size. Windows does not support any violation of this principle.

 

[OldGuyGeek]

When you create your shortcut for each, right click on it and choose properties. Under the Shortcut tab, choose the Change Icon button.

It will bring up all the icons available in the default shell.dll file. Many dll files have one or more icons imbedded. Choose the icon you want to use for your project. You can also use the browse button to search for a different dll or create your own .ico file to use for that project.

Of course, this won't change the size, but you can have a distinctive icon for each project and make all your shortcuts for that project show that particular icon.

 

[Itaregid]

poke them with my finger on the touchscreen.

Are you really talking about "icons" on the "Desktop" or are you talking about "tiles" on Windows 8 "Start Screen"?

I use W8.x but not tiles or the Start Screen (using Start8). I am not aware of any program that will let you change the size or font of individual desktop icons. So what I recommend is moving them so they are always in the same location, for example, on the right side, or upper right corner.

Or... (two birds with one stone...)

For Q2 - I don't know how to "open" all those different file types with one click, but you can surely right-click on a blank space on your desktop and create a new folder with a descriptive name. Then dump or create shortcuts to your spreadsheets, docs, or Internet shortcuts in that folder. In this way, all these common files are located in one place so you find them easily (for Q1) and then you can open them all "within a few clicks" (for Q2).

 

[Clintlgm]

Well if your using IE all your pages should be on tabs to start up when you start up IE? Look in IE Options

I also can't help you with touch screen or Metro Tiles, as I boot straight to desktop.

The program/files you want to start at start up can have shortcut in the Start up Folder Drag and drop to the start up folder
or Create a start up folder on your Desk top put the short cuts in that folder.

Personally I use the old quick Launch toolbar same as I did in XP Vista and win 7

 

[Itaregid]

Personally I use the old quick Launch toolbar same as I did in XP Vista and win 7

Same here. And fortunately, Quicklaunch still comes with W8, it is just not enabled by default.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/5069-quick-launch-add-taskbar-windows-8-a.html

 

[adamf]

Question 2: In general, if you want to save all the windows you are currently using and be able to open them all up within a few clicks later, what are the best options to do this? So say you have an excel file, a word doc, and some internet browser windows all related to one of your projects and you want to access all of those later without having to find them. What are your options to do this?

If you want to open a bunch of stuff you can use the powershell command Start-Process followed by what you want to do. For example this will open eightforums as a tab in your default browser and then Book1.xlxs and Doc1.docx. The program that starts is the default for the file type so for me MS Internet Explorer, Excel and Word.

Start-Process "[URL]http://eightforums.com[/URL]"
Start-Process "C:\Users\adam\desktop\Book1.xlsx"
Start-Process "C:\Users\adam\desktop\Doc1.docx"

Create this file in notepad and save it somewhere with extension .ps1 for powershell. For this example I called it test.ps1. Next make a shortcut and enter the following (changing the path in red to the file you just made) as the target:

%SystemRoot%\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe -noprofile -executionpolicy bypass -File "[COLOR=#ff0000]C:\Users\adam\Documents\test.ps1[/COLOR]"

. You can then change the icon as described above in post 4 and pin it to the desktop, taskbar or start screen.

 

[kneehowguys]

poke them with my finger on the touchscreen.

Are you really talking about "icons" on the "Desktop" or are you talking about "tiles" on Windows 8 "Start Screen"?

I use W8.x but not tiles or the Start Screen (using Start8). I am not aware of any program that will let you change the size or font of individual desktop icons. So what I recommend is moving them so they are always in the same location, for example, on the right side, or upper right corner.

Or... (two birds with one stone...)

For Q2 - I don't know how to "open" all those different file types with one click, but you can surely right-click on a blank space on your desktop and create a new folder with a descriptive name. Then dump or create shortcuts to your spreadsheets, docs, or Internet shortcuts in that folder. In this way, all these common files are located in one place so you find them easily (for Q1) and then you can open them all "within a few clicks" (for Q2).

Thank you. Is there any fast way to create a shortcut for say a word document in word itself when the document is open without having to find the file? Basically it sounds like the only step I could speed up for Q2 is to create the shortcuts faster.

 

[Itaregid]

Thank you. Is there any fast way to create a shortcut for say a word document in word itself when the document is open without having to find the file?

Word already does that for you by listing your "Recent Documents" when you click on the orb in the upper left. You can set it to display up to the last 50 documents you opened. This setting is found under "Word Options" in the "Display" section. Note, I am talking about Word 2007 but I think it is the same for later versions.

Basically it sounds like the only step I could speed up for Q2 is to create the shortcuts faster.

Create the shortcuts faster? Sorry, you lost me there.

 

[kneehowguys]

Thank you. Is there any fast way to create a shortcut for say a word document in word itself when the document is open without having to find the file?

Word already does that for you by listing your "Recent Documents" when you click on the orb in the upper left. You can set it to display up to the last 50 documents you opened. This setting is found under "Word Options" in the "Display" section. Note, I am talking about Word 2007 but I think it is the same for later versions.

Basically it sounds like the only step I could speed up for Q2 is to create the shortcuts faster.

Create the shortcuts faster? Sorry, you lost me there.

So let's say you have two word docs open and two pdfs and a powerpoint and maple open.

Now you are going to make a folder on a desktop with several shortcuts- a shortcut to each document currently open so you can easily find all the files again later.

To do this, normally you would have find every file you have open. Is there a fast way to create a shortcut for every window open?

 

[Itaregid]

Is there a fast way to create a shortcut for every window open?

I know of no way to create a shortcut for an already opened Window, or program or file. You need to create the shortcuts first.