tutorial: How to create custom shortcut arrow for icons

[salkis]

Hello,

this is my first tutorial.
How to create custom shortcut arrow for icons
the default shortcut arrows in windows vista are huge
you can use the program
Ultimate Windows Tweaker UWT v2.2 (to clear off the shortcut arrow completely)
or
Vista Shortcut Manager to give a beautiful blue arrow

I am going to show you how to do it with xara

1. make a 256 x 256 pixels (px) square (very thin line 0.5 px , no fill)
2. draw an arrow inside in the left down corner
3. give it a drop shadow if needed
4. export as png
5. use program Iconfx
http://icofx.ro/

or
http://download.cnet.com/IcoFX/3000-...-10515364.html

6. open the png in iconfx (drag and drop)
7. a "new image dialog box will open" click ok
8. advanced import dialog box: click ok
9. untitled with the png image in 48 x 48
10. now click the windows icon in the toolbar, that will make the icon
11. save the icon in a folder - give the name empty.ico
12. go to C:\Windows\System32
paste and replace the the empty.ico which is in that folder (if you want backup the original one rename it to emptyoriginal.ico
then restart explorer




this empty.ico is an overlay above any shortcuts for applications, files etc.

Now you will be able to see the custom made shortcut arrow over any shortcuts

Hope you find the tutorial useful.
please ask if you have any doubts.
thank you

Salkis

[gwpriester]

Thank you. That looks very efficient and easy to follow.

I used to use IcoFX to create Favico.ico files for my websites. But now I can do this automatically in Web Designer Premium 7 and Designer 7 Pro simply by creating a symbol and adding the name favicon.