[Win 11] Replace (not remove) shortcut arrows

Hi everybody. New Win 11 user here (you may want to read my presentation here).

So, I know we can remove shortcut arrows in Win 11: 2 Ways to Remove Shortcut Arrows in Windows 11

However I don't want to remove them. I'd like to replace them with these green arrows from my current Win 7 which I particularly like:



To be honest I don't remember how I got the green arrows there in the first place. It was 13 years ago, and they're still there, so I've gotten really used to them!

I don't know if they're still hidden somewhere within Win 11. But worst case scenario, they must be somewhere within my current Win 7, so I guess there has to be a way to get them out and import them to Win 11, right?

Could somebody help me with this? Thanks in advance!

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Icons]
"29"="C:\\User_Icons\\No Arrow.ico"

@Brink ... Snap!

Rollback_Jockey said:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Icons]
"29"="C:\\User_Icons\\No Arrow.ico"

Click to expand...

You mean I could just find the green arrow .ico file, put it in a folder, and then use the registry to point to that folder, right? That looks great. :)

Now I only need to find that green arrow and copy it. Any thoughts on doing so from my Win 7?

Jose Hidalgo said:

there has to be a way to get them out and import them to Win 11

Click to expand...

First, you'll need the likes of Icon Viewer to find and extract it from W7...



then use one of the aforementioned methods, or, WinaeroTweaker or CustomizerGod to implant it into W11.

Jose Hidalgo said:

You mean I could just find the green arrow .ico file, put it in a folder, and then use the registry to point to that folder, right? That looks great. :)

Now I only need to find that green arrow and copy it. Any thoughts on doing so from my Win 7?

Click to expand...

That's exactly how i do it, i have loads of custom Icons so keep them all in one place. You don't have to seperate the icon, just point to it wherever it lives.

Thanks @Edwin. Just installed IconViewer, and a search within the Windows directory finds 14 "shell32.dll" files.

However, I have tried 3 of them with IconViewer, and they don't have that green arrow. They have the arrow from your screen cap (#16769) but no green arrow at all. So where could it be? (and should I try all 14 "shell32.dll" files just to be sure? )

If anybody know where to find or download that .ico... thanks in advance!

Jose Hidalgo said:

So where could it be?

Click to expand...

K..., let's go back to @Rollback_Jockey 's suggestion...,
If you can still access the W7 machine find out where the special icon resides from within the Registry, fetch it and port it over to the W11 machine.

I can certainly access the Win 7 machine, it's still my main rig

But that's where the plot thickens: as you can see from the screenshot, my Win 7 only has two items within the Shell Icons key: the default, and the #3 which corresponds to the default folder image for all my folders. No green arrows at all, they must be configured elsewhere.



However I have good news: looking at that same dll (imageres.dll), I finally managed to find the green arrow! It was #163. So nevermind where my registry is storing it: with IconView I managed to save it, and now I can import it to another computer.

One last question: IconView shows a lot of versions of that icon:
48x48 (16 colors)
32x32 (16 colors)
16x16 (16 colors)
48x48 (256 colors)
32x32 (256 colors)
16x16 (256 colors)
256x256, 32bit
48x48 (32 bit)
32x32 (32 bit)
16x16 (32 bit)

Does Win 11 need only one of those, and if yes, which one to pick? Thanks.

Jose Hidalgo said:

Does Win 11 need only one of those, and if yes, which one to pick?

Click to expand...

Icon Viewer will Save it in the appropriate format, a layered .ico,
Icon Viewer is merely showing you those layers...

I get it now. Of course, .ico is a layered format. No more questions!