PDF icon desktop color - why I'm staying with XChange Viewer

[genegold]

Found out a few weeks ago that XChange Viewer is no longer being updated. While I prefer its simplicity over Editor, I can live with the latter except for one thing: the color of the pdf desktop icons it creates. On my Win 10 desktop, Viewer's powder blue with a bit of white melds into the background well, while I find that while the dominant red of Editor's icons is not quite gaudy, it stands out so much as to be distracting, making it harder to look at the desktop as well as differentiate among the pdf's on the desktop. Wish Tracker would take a look at that.

[PeterPan]

Hi,

it's possible to change the icon of application by yourself. Just right click on the icon, choose the last item in the list (I think it is "properties" if you use an english Windows). Then you can click on "Other symbol/icon" and you can choose the icon of any exe file.

Kind regards

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Thanks for the suggestion PeterPan,

genegold, please let us know if that works for you!

Happy Holidays!
Stefan

[genegold]

See the screenshot. Three choices, two red and the other nothing special. Changing to the yellow-gold one had no effect on the pdf icons on my desktop after closing Properties.

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hello genegold,

You will need to browse to the Viewer's .exe and pick the icon from there. On your shot I can see you are still looking inside the Editor's .exe for available icons, and indeed only the red ones are available there.

Cheers,
Stefan

[genegold]

I'm missing something here. Changing Editor's icon to Viewer's is easy, thanks. I'm just not seeing how to get that to change the existing pdf icons on my desktop though.

[Patrick-Tracker Supp]

I'm just not seeing how to get that to change the existing pdf icons on my desktop though.

You will need to clear your thumbnails cache in order to force windows to reload the Icons. You can do thins using disc cleanup as described here: https://neosmart.net/wiki/clear-thumbnails-cache/

Simply ensure that "Thumbnails" is selected, and restart your PC when it is finished.

I hope this helps!

[Willy Van Nuffel]

Personally, I am little bit afraid that the above will not work for changing the icons/shortcuts for PDF-files themselves.
(Myself, I did not succeed after a few tests.)

I think, to achieve this, you will probably have to change the icon(s) in the executable of PDF-XChange Editor itself.
That is almost a kind of 'hacking' and maybe goes beyond the scope of this forum.

Even though, if someone should be interested, here are a few articles on how to:
- http://www.howtogeek.com/75983/stupid-g ... .exe-file/
- http://www.wikihow.com/Change-the-Icon-for-an-Exe-File

Best regards.

[genegold]

My test agrees with the last post. My request is still that the Editor icon be changed for a better fit with desktop pdf's or, probably better, that more icon color choices be provided, with something like Viewer's included. Thanks,

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Thanks for the links Willy,

And thanks for your post genegold,
I will pass that request to our designers for consideration.

Regards,
Stefan

[Ivan - Tracker Software]

You can change the default icon for file type via registry.
For example, when .pdf is associated with the PDF-XChange Editor, the default icon is taken from the path and icon index specified in:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\PDFXEdit.PDF\DefaultIcon

The default value is "C:\Program Files\Tracker Software\PDF Editor\PDFXEdit.exe",1

Here you can specify a full path to desired .ico file, for example. Or to an icon located in EXE or DLL, but it requires to know the index of this icon in the module.