How To Change the Home Folder "Special" Icons

Posted 04.27.12

In your home directory (the one with your name) you have a number of "special" folders such as Documents, Pictures, Videos, Downloads, etc... While most folders will let you change their icon in the properties menu, Vista won't let you mess with these special folders' icons the same way. But it is possible, and doesn't require any registry hacks or extra software.

Will this work on your system?

I use Vista Ultimate 64 bit, but this may also work on other versions of Vista as well as Windows 7 or later. Also, since finding this trick I moved my Documents folder to another hard drive and now I can't find some of the hidden folders now, so your mileage may vary if you've moved any of these folders away from their default locations.

So I was cleaning out my system one day...
...and I had turned on viewing of hidden and system files. I noticed something strange in my home folder, each of the "special" folders had a hidden twin with a similar name. You couldn't open them, but they did have the option to change the icon. I tried it, and the matching "special folder" changed as well.

The easiest one is the Documents Folder:

1. Open up your home users folder, for example C:\Users\YourName


2. Bring down the "Organize" menu in the top left corner, and click "Folder and Search Options"


3. In the "View" tab Select "Show hidden files and folders" and also uncheck "Hide protected operating system files". Click "Ok" and confirm that you really want to unhide system files.


4. Now look in the folder and you will see a hidden "My Documents" folder that has the same icon as your "Documents" folder. This is what you're looking for.


5. Right click the hidden "My Documents" folder, click properties, and under the "Customize" tab you will see the option to change the folder icon. Change it here, and you will see your main "Documents" folder change as well. (You need to refresh the explorer window to see the changes. Just go in another folder and click back)


6. Be sure to go back to the "Folder and Search Options" under "Organize" and hide your system files and hidden files again.

Are you wondering why you didn't see the other folders, like "Pictures" and "Video"? Don't worry, they're not much harder. Most of the other special folder's twins are in your Documents folder

Pictures -> YourName/Documents/My Pictures
Videos -> YourName/Documents/My Videos
etc... etc...

Customize away!

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