DLL Hacking - Modifying your shell32.dll

[mike09]

where can i change icons that i cant find in the shell32. like the winrar and zip icons and mp3's and such.

 

[NetRyder]

They are located in various dll files. For example, the icons for zip files are located in zipfldr.dll
You just have to know where to find them.

 

[mike09]

ok thanks. can someone answer this question for me, i followed the steps in this guide and i replaced icons and created my own dll but when i replaced the dll and rebooted windows woudlnt boto up because it was a not vaild shell32.dll

 

[yoyo]

That's why it is important to make a backup when playing around with crtical system files. If you have a shell32.bak in Windows\system32 you can boot to the recovery console, just rename two files and everything is exactly as before.

 

[mike09]

thanks for the advice yoyo, maybe i should have done taht before i reformated 20 min ago. but any way thanks.

 

[Grandmaster]

It said in the tutorial in big, bold letters: BACKUP YOUR DATA

 

[mike09]

i must of skiped that part. i now this is off topic but is there a site that i can learn how to use the recovery console. thanks.

 

[yoyo]

Originally posted by mike09
i must of skiped that part. i now this is off topic but is there a site that i can learn how to use the recovery console. thanks.

http://www.ntfs.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=28302

 

[Bronx Bomber]

nice tutorial. i never really had the urge to change my icons until i read how to do this and realized i might as well screw around with critical system files.

 

[Not Bman]

This has happened before. When I did this and installed the shell32.dll, everything works fine but "My Pictures" folder stays default. Yes I used TweakUI to refresh all the icons and it still like it. Does anybody know how I can fix that one icon??

 

[yoyo]

Edit the desktop.ini file inside the folder. By default it points to mydocs.dll icon, -101. You can change that.

 

[muzikool]

o_87, great tutorial! I don't want to take anything away from the excellent work that you've done, but I thought I'd mention something that might be helpful for those who are worried about manualling making these changes through Safe Mode and whatnot. Below is a link to Replacer, with a description of the program, a screenshot, etc. I've used it once, and it worked great.

http://www3.telus.net/_/replacer/

 

[Grandmaster]

Sweet, I didn't know about that little app. Will give it a try later...

 

[Grandmaster]

Just realized that the images don't work, going to fix them now...

edit: FIXED.

 

[lechtard]

Good tutorial dude. Is there anywhere to download dll files already made up ??

 

[Grandmaster]

I usually get them from http://deviantart.com by using the search function. But they've disabled that temporarily. So I guess your going to have to wait.

 

[lechtard]

Originally posted by o_87
I usually get them from http://deviantart.com by using the search function. But they've disabled that temporarily. So I guess your going to have to wait.

They limited it to subscribers only. I not paying a monthly fee.

 

[leight]

Help Please

Hey guys,

I know this thread is very very old, but I am having problems getting it to work properly. I have all my icons stored in 'My Documents' and I have opened up the original 'shell32.dll' file and saved is as a new name 'shell32_mac.dll'. Okay, I have changed every single icon in the 'shell32_mac.dll' file to the icons that I have in 'My Documents'. I restart my computer, press F8 and enter 'Safe mode with Command Prompt'.

- cd c:\windows\system32
- ren shell32.dll shell32_orig.dll
- ren shell32_mac.dll shell32.dll

then i turn off my computer and turn it back on again. The problem is, that the icon's still show up as the default XP icons. The thing is that when I open 'shell32.dll' in 'Resource Hacker', the icons that I want show up.

Do any of you know why? Oh btw: some icons work, others dont. I'm running XP Pro, 1.5 p4, 128mb RAM

Thanks!

edit:
when I choose 'open' in a program, the icons show up! Why Why Why!!!

edit2:
It seems as if the problem is in the start menu and also when my comptuer is opened, the hard drive icon, folder icon, my computer icon etc are all the default style!

 

[Grandmaster]

damn, I forgot about this... :S

I think you have a problem with your icon cache. Try rebuilding it using TweakUI:

http://download.microsoft.com/downl...a6-b352-839afb2a2679/TweakUiPowertoySetup.exe

Once you've installed it, simply click on "Repair" on the menu which is on the left, from the drop down menu select "Rebuild Icons" and then finally click "Rebuild Now".

If the icons do not instantly work, do a reboot. That should hopefully fix it.

edit: I should probably update this thing...

 

[~bk]

Why is this in Coding & Design?