Change folder icons in Windows 7

Windows 7 shows really nice folder icons. But if you decide to spice it up and use your own folder icons, then you can do it very easily by editing some registry values. You can do this easily by following steps given in this article.

You must have administrator level access to follow these steps.

  1. Press the key combination Windows Logo Key + R to open the Run dialog. Type regedit in the Run dialog and press Enter to start the Windows’ Registry Editor.
  2. In the Registry Editor, navigate to the following key : 
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorer
  3. Right click on the Explorer and select New → Key. Change the name of the newly created key to Shell Icons
  4. Select the newly created key Shell Icons. Right click on the right side pane and choose New → String value. Modify the name of the newly created string value to 3.
  5. Log off and then log on to see the changes take effect.

If at any later stage you decide to restore the default Windows 7 folder icon, just delete the string value 3 we created earlier in the step 4 above.