I need a program to change shortcut icons, thousands of them.
I've got a folder full of about 7,000 shortcuts, and I want to change the icons on all of them! I've already got the .ico bitmap image ready, but I certainly don't want to sit here and do 7000 manual "change icon" operations. Of course, each of these shortcuts is going to have the same .ico file.
There has to be some sort of freeware program out there that will let me do this batch style?
I don't have an answer for you Keatah, but your Operating System may help as any fix may be different depending on what you're running.
EDIT: Just offhand, the nearest I can think of to mass change an icon is TweakUI, which is compatible with Operating Systems from XP to win7, both X86 and X64 ...
System requirements of TweakUI:
OS Windows 7/VISTA/XP/2k/2k3/2k8 x86 x64
Minimum screen resolution 1024x768
CPU: Pentium processor and above
RAM: 128 Mb RAM
HDD: 5 Mb free disk space
Download size: 1.4M
It's free of course, but maybe goes a step too far to what you want.
You need to specify the desired change.
A very simple BAT script command could replace every *.ico file to be a copy of one special Keatah.ico file.
Something like AutoIt might be trained to merge features of your Keatah.ico file into each of the 7000 off *.ico files.
EDIT: Just offhand, the nearest I can think of to mass change an icon is TweakUI, which is compatible with Operating Systems from XP to win7, both X86 and X64 ...
That will only change the overlay icon on shortcuts, it's the little arrow that shows on them which I turn off.
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7000 shortcuts, you and SuperFast should get together at a pub over a pint, and brag about your level of shortcuts and browser tabs.
I've never heard of any program capable of changing them. TweakUI as DennisD mentioned can refresh the icon cache after you've changed them.
If they're all the same filetype, you can change the file type icon and it'll change them all.
The only thing I can think of that'll do what you want is http://www.stardock.com/products/iconpackager/ but it's shareware (i believe)
That will only change the overlay icon on shortcuts, it's the little arrow that shows on them which I turn off.
You're correct of course. Never having used that feature I was thinking it changed the icon.
There are a couple of different overlays you can apply/remove besides the arrow, but change the icon it doesn't.
You live and learn.
Welp.. I found a solution late last night. 1st I opened the file folder containing all the shortcuts. Then I put it in LIST view style. Then I turned on my mouse/keyboard recorder and changed one shortcut manually using the keyboard. Advanced to the next shortcut. Stopped the recorder at that point.
<alt> F R [[opened the properties window]]
<alt> C <ctrl> V <return> [[pasted the path & location of the new icon image file]]
<return> [[closed the properties window]]
<down arrow key> [[advance to the next file]]
I set the recoder to play that back 7000 times, and down the list it went. It changed all the shortcut icons with great dispatch! Much faster than me doing it manually.
Woohoo, glad you got that one sorted. Doing things by hand can be a pain.
now that it's solved I'm forced to ask…what the heck 7000 shortcuts to what pray tell
Digital elevation models, .DEM files, from various solar system bodies. 7,000 files is nothing. The amount of data being returned from planetary science craft and astronomical observations is astounding. 100's of terrabytes is an appropriate yardstick.
I have heard that Folder Marker Pro & Folder Ico may be able to do this. I believe both programs have free & trial versions.
Folder Maker Pro and Folder Ico perform operations on folders only. Not the shortcuts themselves.
Ah!!! I see... Will have to research a bit to see what I can come up with sometime.