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Asked: 2021-12-15T12:26:34+00:00 In:

How To Change Icons Of Games

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I installed a game from way back in the days of Windows 95. It has an
icon in the .exe, but the icon does not show up in Explorer. However, it
DOES show up in the Properties box for the .exe. A shortcut to the .exe
in the Games menu also does NOT show the icon. I’m guessing that
that may be because the icon doesn’t meet Windows 7 requirements.

Right-clicking a shortcut on the left side of the Start Menu brings up
a menu with “Properties” at the bottom. Clicking that brings up the
properties box. On the “Shortcut” tab is a “Change Icon” button.

Right-clicking shortcuts to games in the “Games” menu on the right
side of the Start Menu brings up a different menu, which does NOT
include “Properties”.

How can I change the icon of a game, as I can for other shortcuts?

— Jeff, in Minneapolis

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    1. Best Answer
      I tend not to use “right click exe drag” to create shortcuts because it is not always consistent. For example, right now I went to my CCleaner in Program Files. There were two exe’s, one called CCleaner.exe the other called CCleaner64.exe. With CCleaner.exe it offered to create a shortcut where I dragged it to. With CCleaner64.exe it wanted to “move the file itself”. My approach therefore is to right click the exe then use Create a shortcut from the menu. If the exe is in a system area, such as Program Files, it then says it will put it on the desktop instead. Fine because I can then move it to wherever I like. Maybe this is worth trying just to see if it makes any difference.

      Try this:
      Go to the Change Icon button in your shortcut. Does the correct icon now show in the little Window? If so double click that icon, then use Apply/OK on the larger Window that arrives afterwards. I have found many times that this variation in procedure makes obstinate icons stick. A trick worth knowing even if it doesn’t help your issue.

      Odd that the exe shows the correct icon yet you still have trouble with the shortcut. The only way I know to get around that is to use an icon extracting program which produces a small ico file from an exe. I then file that away somewhere and point Change Icon to this saved ico file. This is something I haven’t done since XP, although freebie programs are probably still out there.

      Note that I am now on Win 8.1 so sometimes it is necessary to start up a Win 7 computer to make a proper comparison or check things out (as I did in #9).

      Always pop back and let us know the outcome – thanks

      message edited by Derek

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