How to extract icons from EXE, DLL, OCX, and CPL files

Wish you could extract all of icons stored on your computer? If I were to ask you how many icons you have stored on your computer, would you be able to tell me? Probably not! Nor can I! Actually, most applications store their icons directly in the EXE (executable) file itself, which indirectly hides those icons from you.

I sometimes enjoy changing the icons on my computer for a specific application or maybe for a certain file that I use very often and want to visually differentiate from everything else. You can quickly change the icon on a program, file, document, photo, etc by simply right-clicking on it and going to Properties. Click on Customize and then click Change Icon.

This is great for the most part, but the problem comes in trying to find a suitable icon to replace the current one with. By default, when you change the icon for a folder or program, Windows will bring up a list of icons from SHELL32.DLL, which has a bunch of generic-looking and crappy icons. Now going around and randomly clicking on EXE files or DLL files to find icons is not fun nor efficient.

IconsExtract is a cool freeware application that you can use to automatically find icons that are stored in EXE, DLL, OCX, CPL, and other file types. You’ll be amazed at the actual number of icons stored on your computer after using this program!

The program is a standalone executable and does not require any installation at all, which means you can run it on any computer easily! You can also filter the search by icons or cursors, by icon size, and even by the number of colors.

You have 2 main search options when you start up the program:

1.Select only a single file. For example: C:\WINNT\System32\shell32.dll You can either manually type in the filename into the textbox, or select it from a dialog box by clicking the “Browse Files” button.

2.Select multiple filenames by using wildcard characters (? and *). You can select the folder that you want to scan by clicking the “Browse Folders” button. If you check the “Search Subfolders” check-box, all of the subfolders of the main folder will also be scanned.For example: if you type “c:\*.*” in the filename text-box, and check the “Search Subfolders” option, IconsExtract will search for icons in all folders and files on your C: drive.

After the search is complete, you will find the icons displayed in the main window of the program. You can then save the icons into ICO files by selecting the ones you want to save and then choosing Save Selected Icons from the File menu.

You can also copy a single icon to the clipboard and paste it into another application by pressing the standard CTRL + C key combo. This will copy the icon in the standard dimensions of 16×16 or 32×32. If you want to copy a different size, double click on the icon and select the specific image in the properties window and click Copy Selected Image.

Overall, this is a very cool application for anyone who likes to customize their icons or who wants to take a cool icon from a program as use it as a Fav Icon or something similar. Definitely worth check out! Enjoy!

Categories: Windows XP