Description: Desksave is a free, lightweight program that saves the icon layout on the desktop according to the current screen resolution and can restore it at a later point if needed, either manually or automatically. It features a number of interesting options, including portability, shell integration into the right-click context menu, and the option to run from the command line.

This is the third program of its kind that I am featuring on Freewaregenius (I’d previously reviewed DIManagerX and Shock Desktop). My experience with these kinds of programs is that they are strangely unreliable, especially in relation to whether ’Auto Arrange’ and/or ’Align to Grid’ are enabled. Each of the programs above offers its own set of features and advantages, but Desksave brings a number of things to the table that has made it my desktop-icon-saving program of choice; (these are the first four points outlined below):

• It’s reliable: i.e. it works, whether ’Auto Arrange’ or ’Align to Grid’ are turned on or off, it does what it purports to do (and does not force you to re-check Align to Grid if it was checked to begin with. Note that for this as well as other similar program it might be necessary to perform the icon restoration multiple times in order to get everything back exactly the way it was, depending on how mixed up your icons become.
• Can live in the context menu: this program can be accessed from the system tray or (optionally) in the context menu. I never thought that context menu access would be desirable for a program like this, but in practical terms I’ve found this to be extremely useful (I would even say this is my favorite feature). There is something intuitively appealing about right-clicking to restore the icon layout when you need to.
• It’s lightweight: a mere 78,5 K for DeskSave.exe, and 79.5K for the shell extension.
• Portable: this is a no install program. Adding (or removing) Desksave to the context menu can be done within the program dialog.
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Description: Bradicon is a web service that will convert any image you upload to 32-bit icons in ICO format that you can then download.

A cool little site that can instantly convert any image you upload to it into ICO icon format. Of course, this can also be done by many freeware programs that you can install locally, such as the IcoFX icon editor (which can also do image to ICO conversions in batch), or Imagicon. However, if you don’t convert images to icon regularly and/or don’t care to install a program on your machine for a handful of conversions, Bradicon is a great resource that works really well. More info on this one:

• Supports JPG, GIF, PNG image types as input, and outputs 32 bit icons in ICO format.
• ICO file includes 3 sizes: 16×16, 32×32, and 48×48. Transparency is preserved.
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Description: Deleket’s icon gallery on deviantART features multiple, freely downloadable icon packs provided for free download under the Creative Commons license.

I am always looking for high quality free icons, mostly for use on my hard drive as custom folder or file icons, and when I stumbled upon this guy’s profile on deviantART I was blown away.

Its not just that the quality of icons is outstanding, but this designer’s prolific output is quite an achievement: I counted thirty icon packs displayed across two gallery pages (with more surely to come soon). More notes on these:

• License: these icons are released under the Creative Commons license, which is to say that they are freely downloadable, and you are able to “copy, distribute and transmit” them, but have to attribute them to the author. You are able to use the icons for non-commercial projects but are not allowed to alter them.
• Formats: most of these packs contain icons are made available in PNG and ICO formats, and some also contain Mac ICNS format. There are exceptions such as the Mobile wallpaper pack that is simply JPGs.
• Sizes: run the whole gamut: 16×16, 24×24, 32,x32, 48×48, 64×64, 72×72, 96×96, 128×128, and even 256×256.

Ok here’s my top five six favorite Deleket icon packs:
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Description: UberIcon is a windows tweak that adds visual effects when double clicking on an icon. It comes with three different effects to choose from, extendible by downloading and installing additional plugins from the Ubericon website.

The tagline used in this program’s website under is “Ubericon: pointless eye candy is fun”, which really is all there is to say about this program. What it does is display visual effects when you click on an icon. Ubericon comes with 3 types of effects built in upon installation: iBounce (left screenshot) makes the icon look like its jumping up on clicking, Flatout (middle) creates the illusion of the icon disappearing into the horizon, while iZoom (right) creates the effect of quickly zooming into the icon. Here are more notes on this one:
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Description: IconX is a free Windows Explorer context menu extension that enables you to change the icon used for any file-type. It can also change the icon used for any individual file, and for any individual folder.

IconX? Yes. Do not mistake this with the shareware Stardock IconX, though, which is a completely different product.

A few weeks ago I wrote about how to change the icons used for any filetype using a freeware program called Icon Phile. And although that program worked great for me, I discovered through reader’s comments that it didn’t work on all systems or had problems. Moreover, it was not as user friendly and I would have liked, so I kept my eye out for other options and found IconX. I am happy to report that IconX does the job easily straight from the Windows right-click context menu. Here are more notes on this program:

• How it works: simply install IconX, right click on any file or folder and select “change icon” from the context menu. A dialog will be shown with a preview window for any icon files that you might browse to. Note: you can use ICO files, DLLs, ICL icon libraries as your target, just change the “files of type” dropdown at the bottom of the open file dialog. You can also point it to EXE files with icons in them.
• Individual v. global: to change the icon used globally for a file type, right click “change icon” on any file of that type then check the box in the IconX icon browser that says “use icon for all files of that type”. Otherswise, if the box is unchecked, IconX will change the icon of the individual file rather than globally.
• Where are the icons stored?: for files with individually changed icons, the new icon is not stored in the file/folder itself, but rather in a centralized place on your system (most likely the registry). This means that files/folders with customized icons that are emailed or moved to a network drive will not display custom icons when viewed from another computer. (Unlike, say, Stylefolder, which will store the icons in the folder itself).
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Description: This posting will describe how to change the default icons used for any file-type using the free”Icon Phile” program.

Imagine this: you have just installed a very nice program that may be outstanding in many respects but inexplicably foists on yours PC some of the ugliest icons you’ve ever seen for the file extensions that it handles. Or you’ve just downloaded some nifty icon libraries with very nicely done icons for various file types, and you would like to use those instead of the default icons on your system. This how-to will show you how you can do this; it will assume that you have (a) an icon or icons for a file type that you want to change, and (b) an icon or icons that you want to use in their stead, in the form of an icon file (.ICO), an icon library (DLL) or even an executable that might contain the icon(s) you seek.

For the purposes of this posting I will change the default icons for PDF files from those used by my favorite free PDF reader, PDF-XChange Viewer, to another icon I found in a library.

The program used: is called Icon Phile. Alas this freeware program is no longer in development but you can find a download link on my Icon Phile review page. Once downloaded unzip the archive in the place you want to keep it, as this program does not require installation. After this go ahead and launch the program.

Step by step:
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Description: Freeware program StyleFolder can perform a handful of interesting folder customizations straight from the Windows right-click context menu, including changing the folder’s icon, using an image as folder background, and changing the font color used inside the folder. All customizations are saved into the folder itself and are preserved across PCs or over the network.

I’ve previously written about a couple of programs that change folder icons from the context menu on this site (Foldermarker, and FolderICO). What I especially liked about the latter (and what I like about Stylefolder) is that the folder icon changes are saved into the folder itself, making it possible to, say, put a folder on the network or on a USB drive and preserve the custom folder look when you access the folder from another computer.

Here are some more notes on this program:

• Changing folder icon: can open any file to get icon resources (icon libraries, icon files, executables, etc.) It doesn’t offer pre-packaged icon sets like the programs mentioned above. If you are looking for free icons, however, check out this post.
• Changing folder background: you can, it seems, use any image file as background to your folder. The image will be tiled in the background so ’pattern’ type images will work best.
• Changing font color: this would be the font color for the files/folders displayed inside your folder.
• Reverting changes: can be done with a single click. Its also possible to revert any single changed element (icon/background/text color).
• Context menu integration: can be turned on or off.
• Folder size: because the image/icon you use is saved within the folder itself, you will have empty folders that, once customized, will actually be a few kilobytes in size (corresponding to your image file and/or icons sizes).
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Description: Shock Desktop is a program that can save the locations of your desktop icons and easily restore them if and when they change. It allows for the creation of multiple profiles and includes a number of useful functions.

There are a number of programs that save and restore the locations of desktop icons, but I really like this one for the following reasons:

• Profiles: Allows you to set any number of profiles. This can be useful if (a) you flip different resolutions on your display, and (b) if you would like different icon arrangements and not just a single, favorite one.
• Tray icon operation: resides in the tray icon for quick access. Although there are a couple of functionalities that it offers if its running in memory (see below), you really only need it when you’re ready to restore icon locations. (You can switch auto-starting with Windows in the options).
• Usage: Does not require switching off the ’align to grid’ option to perform. This is a strange requirement of some desktop-icon saving apps such as another favorite of mine, DIManagerX.
• Hiding desktop icons (a.k.a interesting functionality#1): there’s an option whereby you can quickly turn desktop icons on and off from the system tray. (For me this comes in handy whenever I want to create screenshots for programs).
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Rating: 5

Version tested: 3.7.2

[Note: this review was written by my friend Mohammed Raei from Amman, Jordan; see his personal blog here - The Freewaregenius]

Description: Folderico is a nice little program that allows you to change the color and individual icons of folders right from the context menu.

This is a versatile program and can be used in so many ways. For example you might denote all of your work folders with a red color to visually differentiate them from other folders, or you could change the icon of your downloads folder from a simple plain folder to one that, say, has a big green arrow on it.

This program is very similar to another program previously featured on Freewaregenius called Foldermarker. There are a number of differences between them which I will point out.

Here is what I like about this program:

• Allows the change of a folder’s icon straight from the context menu (right mouse click).
• Comes with multiple built-in themes that contain custom folder icons on various subjects (e.g. music, video, Linux, etc). A theme is the collection of icons that are automatically presented as options when you right-click on a folder; you can switch across a number of built in themes or load your own. Read more »

Rating: 5 pick

Version tested: 1.5.01

Description: IcoFX is an advanced icon creation and editing program that offers a full range of tools and effects for icon manipulation. It can handle a wide range of data types, color modes, resolutions, and image/icon formats.

IcoFX is an impressive program; the tools that are available for image manipulation and the various effects and editing options rival those of a sophisticated bitmap editor/paint program. Which is not to say that it is an overly complicated program; in fact, it is remarkably straightforward. Here’s what you need to know about this program.

• Useability: simple yet highly functional. Zoom up to 1000% for precision editing, switch grid off/on. Sidebar contains all different icon size incarnations for easy switching and access. Most importantly, allows multiple undos (yes, you can trace your work all the way back to the point before you messed everything up).
• Images to icons: IcoFX can do batch image to icon conversions (supports BMP, JPG, PNG, and GIF image formats). Unlike Imagicon, another program that I reviewed recently, IcoFX will create individual icon files that contain multiple icon sizes. You can also export images if you like (including transparencies).
• Icon Extraction: point IcoFX to an EXE file or icon DLL library and it can extract any available icons (including Vista icons). It can do this individually or in batches of files/icons.
• Capture icons: just tell IcoFX the icon size you want, and the capture tool will allow you to ’snap’ any area on your screen and edit is/use it as an icon.
• Editing Tools: in addition to the default tools that you would expect, this program includes tools such as an opacity tool, a gradient tool, and a blur/sharpen tool. Other editing option include flipping and rotating (including free rotation), brightness/contrast manipulation, color balance manipulation through sliders, opacity, fadeout, and shadow. You can also change the dimensions of the icon you are working with. Read more »