Minor desktop Icon issue (pictures included)

[PianoKid272]

I just spent a good 2 hours trying to figure out how to remove the shortcut arrow and UAC (blue and yellow shield) symbol off my Icons and finally am successful! I just had a very strong urge to clean up my desktop and make it look neat.

My next challenge is to fix the icons that seem to be stuck as a "medium" sized icon. I say this because when my icons are in "medium" size, all of them look the same size. However when I switch to large icons, a few stay and medium while the rest become bigger. I've noticed that most of these icons were from the Shell_32.dll file. I have my computer hooked up to a large TV so large Icons are a must.

This first picture is my icons before the removal of the shortcut arrow, UAC symbol, and the batch (unimportant but funny)

http://tinypic.com/r/34fmb0i/6

(That batch code is pretty devious right? No one would ever guess it immediately shuts off the computer XD)

This second picture is it all cleaned up and how it looks at the moment

http://tinypic.com/r/x4ew5f/6

My question is if there is a program or other way of increasing the size of the .ico file and thus making it a "large" icon.

The icons I'm referring to if you haven't noticed are Raidcall, gmail, Clannad, TIConnect, and the batch shortcut.

EDIT: sorry for forgetting earlier but I am currently running Windows 7 profesional on a Dell Studio 17 laptop

[MANEMAN]

For anyone else reading, you can remove shortcut arrows from Windows 7 by using "FXVisor". It comes in 2 flavours. - 64 and 32 bit. It's advertised as "Windows Vista Shortcut Overlay Remover." You cant get it from Frameworkx anymore but if you Google for it you'll find it. As usual there are more tips and hints out there than you can shake a stick at for removal of shortcut arrows so the final decision is yours.

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I've got a couple of VB Scripts that I altered to personalize, and give a nice little box for choice. Neither of them are particularly amusing but you could rename them "Press this to end the world before Christmas". That could be quite a jolly hoot and a party stopper dont y'know.

x = msgbox("shutdown this computer?",4)
set shell = createobject("wscript.shell")
if x = ("6") then
shell.run "shutdown -S -f -t 0"
end if
wscript.quit

x = msgbox("restart this computer?",4)
set shell = createobject("wscript.shell")
if x = ("6") then
Shell.run "C:\WINDOWS\system32\shutdown.exe -r -t 0"
end if
wscript.quit

With wording altered in the first line of the script It would look like this:

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The easiest way to get larger icons is to make your own personalized icons.

Quite easily done online these days.

What you want to end up with is a .ICO file extension............... So..........

Upload your chosen picture to here: Online Icon Maker , make your icon which will then have the file extension .PNG

Now upload that .PNG file to CONVERTICO , Convert it to .ICO, download it and now you have a large icon to use.

Once again there are many ways of doing these things. It's just up to the individual which one they feel the most comfortable with.

Some applications have larger icons within them that are never used. If you break into the app. you can extract them and use them as desktop icons. (More for the experienced computer user.)

You can do that with: RESOURCE HACKER

Hoping that has been of some use to you.

John.

[MANEMAN]

As a matter of interest do you play piano "PianoKid" ?

I am just starting to do a tutorial on VST's and VSTi's. It will be entitled something like:

" How to have a Piano / Synthesizer / Organ, up-and-running on your computer in less than 10 minutes using freeware."

Not many musical people seem to tackle the basics of computer generated music. Most subjects dealt with tend to be way above peoples heads, or too expensive. So I thought I would do some guides to help people who had the same sort of questions and problems that I first had.

I've managed to get some pretty professional sounds from a keyboard, and all for free.

Anyone else interested ?

John.

[PianoKid272]

Wow thanks for the detailed answer Maneman!

I haven't gotten to convert the icons just yet so I will work on that now. And that batch would be awesome, I'm probably going to read up on how to create altered pop-up scripts like that because that could be a fun thing to mess around with >_<

And yes I play piano. I've played for probably about 10 years now which would have been 2nd grade and I don't plan on stopping. I'm not 100% sure if by saying you can play piano on a computer that you mean you can actually hook up and record a keyboard to a computer (which I can do with audacity and use when I make videos) or that you actually have a piano on the computer.

[PianoKid272]

Convert ICO is not working. I am constantly getting 'ICO to PNG is under maintenance. We are sorry for the inconvenience this may have caused you".

No other ico to png converter sites are working as well....

I tried to open the icon in mspaint and increase the size of the individual icon but when I go to save it, it tells me the transparency of the icon will be lost in the saved png file.

Any ideas?

[MANEMAN]

(1) Choose your picture

(2) Upload it to here:

(3) Upload the resultant .png icon to here:

choose PNG to ICO

(4) Download Icon.

Whilst in, and within the two online programs choose the size icon you require.

No other software required. Dont bother to ask me how to do it again. It's not rocket science.

If you cant do it. - Leave it.

John.

[PianoKid272]

Ok I got it.

The problem was that convertico would not function because it was down for maintenance.

All I had to do was try a different program in which I tried converticon.com and that worked fine.

It let me do everything I needed to do in one step instead of 2.

/>http://tinypic.com/r/2e6606g/6

[MANEMAN]

Well Done. Knew you could do it. :)