Change user icons on Windows 10

Question

How can I change user icons of regular user icons (Downloads, Documents, Photos, Videos, Music,...)

Answer 1

You may need to change the icon reference by editing the hidden desktop.ini file under each shell folder.

Desktop.ini

To edit the desktop.ini file for the Downloads folder, press WinKey + R, and type notepad %userprofile%\downloads\desktop.ini. Change the icon reference from:

IconResource=%SystemRoot%\system32\imageres.dll,-184

to

IconResource=D:\Websites\Media\myicon.ico,0

Similarly do this for other shell folders.

Registry

Other areas in Explorer use the icon settings from the registry. To change that, in the Registry Editor (Regedit.exe), go to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CLSID

Create the {GUID} applicable to a shell folder, and create a DefaultIcon key underneath. For example, to customize Downloads folder icon, you create this key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CLSID\{088E3905-0323-4B02-9826-5D99428E115F}\DefaultIcon

Then double-click (default) and set its value data to a .ico file. A sample REG file:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CLSID{088E3905-0323-4B02-9826-5D99428E115F}\DefaultIcon]

@="D:\Websites\Media\myicon.ico,0"

Repeat this for each shell folder icon you want to customize, and the other GUID strings are as follows:

Src: Remove Quick access, Folders (6) and Other Shell Folders from File Explorer?

{B4BFCC3A-DB2C-424C-B029-7FE99A87C641}  Desktop

{D3162B92-9365-467A-956B-92703ACA08AF}  Documents

{3DFDF296-DBEC-4FB4-81D1-6A3438BCF4DE}  Music

{24AD3AD4-A569-4530-98E1-AB02F9417AA8}  Pictures

{F86FA3AB-70D2-4FC7-9C99-FCBF05467F3A}  Videos

Logoff and login back after editing the registry and/or desktop.ini.