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#140: How can I define a custom icon for some folder?

In MS Windows you can define any custom icon for desired folder instead default icon (yellow folder picture). Also you can define own string description which will be displayed in Explorer application.

To do it is very easy task:
1. you must create a desktop.ini file with special structure:
[.ShellClassInfo]
IconFile=yourFileWithIcon.ico
IconIndex=0
InfoTip=your description text

2. you must set a System flag to attributes of your folder

A first part is solved in Delphi in a few lines of code:

with TINIFile.Create(yourFolderName + '\desktop.ini') do
  try
    WriteString('.ShellClassInfo', 'IconFile', 'yourFileWithIco.ico');
    WriteString('.ShellClassInfo', 'IconIndex', '0'); //icon index
    WriteString('.ShellClassInfo', 'InfoTip', 'your description text');
    {flush a buffered INI-file to disk}
    UpdateFile; 
  finally
    Free
  end;

A second (to set a system attribute) is not hard too:
SetFileAttributes(PChar(yourFolderName), FILE_ATTRIBUTE_SYSTEM);

Published: May 20, 2002

See also

	Word Web-stream
	Metafile Convert
	SMMsg suite
	ABA Document Convert
	DBISAM Viewer
	Paradox Viewer
	MAPIMail
	Fast Document Viewer
	ABA Picture Convert
	Paradox ActiveX

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