Solved Is it possible to apply icon to files without an extension?

I have always used Nirsoft's FileTypesMan to customize file icon's by file type extension, but haven't been able to customize icons or default applications for files with no extension


Some examples

• sdkconfig (from Espressif)
• config (from git)
• LOG (from Eclipse)
• ...

Is it possible to customize icons & default applications for files without an extension like above?

By default install of Windows the extensions for known file types are not shown but I always make the extensions visible [but I'm from the old school of MS-DOS 5 with Win 3.1 back in '92. It's the file association that somewhat controls what icons the files use, what program has the icon usually in one of it's files such as a .dll or an .exe. Windows has this file containing it's icons, seen when changing the icon in Properties of a file included with Windows. %SystemRoot%\System32\SHELL32.dll

I think no, at least not with the usual methods.

Yes



You should notice the icon for the unknown file extension.

the default (white page with folded corner) is:

it is set to

changing that will apply to all files that do not have an extension

Applying to all files without an extension doesn't sound like you can customize the icon for individual files.

Worded correctly, CoPilot (as a last resort) returned some options to apply an icon to a file that has no extension (for example) like sdkconfig

Windows can create File Type Associations based purely on a set of filename extensions (for example: .jpg, .jpeg). Each declared File Type Association points to a Default App, which in turn may have a file icon which Explorer uses.

This behavior is entirely dependent on looking at the extension, and nothing more. For files without extensions, they fall into a generic class of "unknown" file types. FileTypesMan can't do what Windows won't support.

Other operating systems support a notion of a "magic number". A magic number is a sequence of exact bytes found at a given offset. The idea is all MPEG4-encoded files, for example, share the same marker bytes in their headers. You could determine what a file type is, regardless of the current filename.

Unfortunately, Windows doesn't do this because it's an expensive operation to perform if your folder has many files to browse.

antspants said:

Worded correctly, CoPilot (as a last resort) returned some options to apply an icon to a file that has no extension (for example) like sdkconfig

Click to expand...

I'm not ready to let Microsoft loose with AI on my computer just yet.

This context and conversation is powerful, I also appreciate the detailed feedback from @garlin & @Berton


Resolution:

• Microsoft prefers the unknown file extension have no association (see attached! Thank you @antspants)

• So I will keep the default icon blank

• And have posted to Microsoft Feedback in request - Providing custom file actions & icons for files without extension

I appreciate your time and feedback here, thank you all :)