Not sure if this is what your looking for but but go to windows explorer-tools-folder options. then select xls, as an example. select advanced. You should see a button to change the icon. if you get an error, you blew out the install folder that contained the xlicons.exe file. Here is the folder name, this is for xp: C:\WINDOWS\Installer\{90120000-0011-0000-0000-0000000FF1CE}\xlicons.exe