31Windows Icons: Full list with details, locations & images

Good qual­ity icons and images, espe­cially ones with an alpha trans­par­ency can be time con­sum­ing to make, and are often also hard to find.  One source of lots of high qual­ity icons in a range of sizes is Win­dows.  Win­dows 7 includes lots of icons which can be use­ful as the major­ity are avail­able in sizes from 16×16 up to 256×256, and come with alpha trans­par­ency.  You may have noticed that we use some on our down­loads page — they’re handy to quickly indic­ate file type. Win­dows stores most of its icons inside exe and dll files which makes them inac­cess­ible to stand­ard image manip­u­la­tion applic­a­tions like Pho­toshop.  How­ever, once they have been loc­ated they can eas­ily be extrac­ted with the free­ware util­ity IcoFX. Track­ing some of them down seems to be the trick­i­er part. Below is a quick ref­er­ence for the loc­a­tions of many of the icons avail­able on Win­dows 7. I will peri­od­ic­ally add more details and any extra icon lib­rar­ies I dis­cov­er to this list.


IcoFX can be used to extract the images.  It sup­ports all icon sizes, from 16×16 up to 256×256.  It sup­ports the full range of col­our depths — 8bit, 16bit and 32bit.  It also sup­ports alpha trans­par­ency.  Icons can be extrac­ted to bmp, jpg, png, gif and jp2.  IcoFX 2 is free­ware.  More details are avail­able on the down­loads page.

Loc­a­tions of com­mon win­dows icons

File TypeAsso­ci­ated ExtensionsBuilt-in?Loc­a­tion
Audio
MP3mp3yes%windir%\system32\wmploc.dll 60
Free Lossless Audio CodecflacnoIncluded in FLAC
Raw Wave Filewavyes%windir%\system32\wmploc.dll 62
Ogg Vor­bisoffnoIncluded in Xiph Codecs
Midimidyes%windir%\system32\imageres.dll 18
Mon­key’s AudioapenoIncluded in Mon­key’s Audio
Apple Losslessalac alenoIncluded in Itunes / Quicktime
Video
Matroskamkv mkanoDown­load from Devi­antArt
Win­dows Recor­ded TVwtvyes%windir%\system32\sberes.dll 0
Audio-Video Inter­leaveaviyes%windir%\system32\wmploc.dll 59
Motion Pic­ture Experts Groupmpg mpegyes%windir%\system32\wmploc.dll 61
Flash VideoflvnoIncluded in Adobe Flash Player
Win­dows Media Videowmvyes%windir%\system32\wmploc.dll 64
Apple MoviemovnoIncluded in Itunes / Quicktime
Image
Joint Pic­ture Experts Groupjpg jpegyes%windir%\system32\imageres.dll 68
Port­able Net­work Graphicpngyes%windir%\system32\imageres.dll 79
Bit­mapbmpyes%windir%\system32\imageres.dll 66
Graph­ics Inter­change Formatgifyes%windir%\system32\imageres.dll 67
Tagged Image File Formattif tiffyes%windir%\system32\imageres.dll 160
Pho­toshop ImagepsdnoIncluded in Adobe Pho­toshop
Paint­shop Pro Imagepsp pspim­agenoIncluded in Corel Paint­shop Pro
Scal­able Vec­tor GraphicssvgnoUnknown
Web
Hyper­Text Markup Languagehtml htmyes%windir%\system32\ieframe.dll 10
PHP Hyper­text PreprocessorphpyesIncluded in Dream­Weaver
Extens­ible Markup LanguagexmlyesIncluded in Dream­Weaver
Cas­cad­ing Style SheetscssyesIncluded in Dream­Weaver
Java ArchivejarnoIncluded in Java
JavaS­criptjs jscriptyes%windir%\system32\wscript.exe 4
VB Scriptvbsyes%windir%\system32\wscript.exe 3
Really Simple Syndicationrssyes%windir%\system32\ieframe.dll 66
Doc­u­ments
Plain Texttxtyes%windir%\system32\imageres.dll 98
Microsoft Worddoc docxnoIncluded in Microsoft Office
Microsoft Excelxls xlsxnoIncluded in Microsoft Office
Microsoft Power­pointppt pptxnoIncluded in Microsoft Office
Microsoft Pub­lish­erpub pubxnoIncluded in Microsoft Office
Adobe Port­able Doc­u­ment FormatpdfnoIncluded in Microsoft Office
Com­pres­sion
Rar ArchiverarnoIncluded in Win­RAR
Zip ArchivezipnoIncluded in Win­ZIP
7Zip Archive7znoIncluded in 7Zip
Oth­er
HTML Helphlpyes%windir%\hh.exe 0
Execut­ableexeyes%windir%\system32\imageres.dll 12
Ini­tial­isa­tion / Con­fig­ur­a­tion Fileiniyes%windir%\system32\imageres.dll 65
Setup Inform­a­tion Fileinfyes%windir%\system32\imageres.dll 65
Dynam­ic Link Librarydllyes%windir%\system32\imageres.dll 63
Home / Houseyes%windir%\system32\ieframe.dll 0
16bit DOS Com­mand Scriptcmd batyes%windir%\system32\imageres.dll 64
Registry Frag­mentregyes%windir%\system32\regedit.exe 2
True Type Fontttfyes%windir%\system32\imageres.dll 150
Microsoft Installermsiyes%windir%\system32\imageres.dll 163

Ref­er­ence list of Win­dows Icons con­tained in dll and exe icon libraries

The num­bers below each icon refer to the icon num­ber of the file, and the num­ber in brack­ets indic­ates how many vari­ants of the icon there are (there could be up to a the­or­et­ic­al max­im­um of 20, with dif­fer­ent col­our depths and sizes.  All the icon screen­shots shown below are of 32×32 icons in their highest avail­able colour-depth.

%windir%\system32\compstui.dll (Com­mon Prop­erty Sheet User Interface)

compstui.dll icons

%windir%\system32\ddores.dll (Device Cat­egory Inform­a­tion and Resources)

DDORes.dll icons

%windir%\system32\ieframe.dll (Inter­net Explorer)

ieframe.dll icons

%windir%\system32\imageres.dll (Win­dows Image Resource)

imageres.dll icons

%windir%\system32\mmcndmgr.dll (Microsoft Man­age­ment Con­sole Node Manager)

mmcndmgr.dll icons

%windir%\system32\moricons.dll (Win­dows NT Setup Icon Resources)

moricons.dll icons

%windir%\system32\netshell.dll (Net­work Con­nec­tions Shell)

netshell.dll icons

%windir%\system32\pnidui.dll (Net­work Sys­tem Icons)

pnidui.dll icons

%windir%\system32\shell32.dll (Win­dows Shell Common)

shell32.dll icons

%windir%\system32\wmploc.dll (Win­dows Media Play­er Resources)

wmploc.dll icons

%windir%\system32\pifmgr.dll (Win­dows NT PIF Man­ager Icon Resource Library)

pifmgr.dll icons

%windir%\system32\wpdshext.dll (Port­able Devices Shell Extension)

wpdshext.dll icons

%windir%\system32\comres.dll (COM+ Resources)

comres.dll icons

%windir%\system32\dmdskres.dll (Disk Man­age­ment Sup­port Snap-In)

dmdskres.dll icons

%windir%\system32\dsuiext.dll (Dir­ect­ory Ser­vice Com­mon UI)

dsuiext.dll icons

%windir%\system32\inetcpl.cpl (Inter­net Con­trol Panel)

inetcplc.dll icons

%windir%\system32\mstsc.exe (Remote Desktop Con­nec­tion Client)

mstsc.exe icons

%windir%\system32\mstscax.dll (Remote Desktop Ser­vices Act­iveX Client)

mstscax.dll icons

%windir%\system32\setupapi.dll (Win­dows Setup API)

setupapi.dll icons

%windir%\system32\shdocvw.dll (Shell Doc Object and Con­trol Library)

shdocvw.dll icons

%windir%\system32\urlmon.dll (OLE32 Exten­sion for Win32)

urlmon.dll icons

%windir%\system32\wiashext.dll (Ima­ging Devices Shell Folder UI)

wiashext.dll icons

%windir%\system32\mmres.dll (Gen­er­al Audio Resources) — Thanks to Marek Podgorny (see com­ments below)

mmres.dll icons

Please send us your thoughts by commenting below! If you would like to subscribe please use the subscribe link on the menu at the top right. You can also share this with your friends by using the social links below. Cheers.

Leave a Reply

31 Comments

gravatarEric Magnifico

Hallo,

ich habe für Win­dows 10 etwas gemacht, daß viel­leicht jemanden interessiert:

Ikon­en + Ord­nerikon­en geänder mit­tel Ext­Man und CustomizerGod

Hierzu habe ich ein Script für den auto­mat­ischen Import..
Bei Interesse, ein­fach melden. Ich schicke es dann rüber.

Reply
gravatarWolfgang

Gibt es auch eine Liste mit ICONS von allge­mein­er Bedeu­tung wie z.B für Strom und Gas, Banken, Ver­sicher­ungen, Autos etc.

Reply
gravatarJon Scaife

Hi Wolfgang

This art­icle only has win­dows built-in icons. So if it does­n’t have icons for some­thing they wont be included here

Reply
gravatararthuria

nice but cmd prompt icon is wrong: imageres.dll 64 as you show below is some­thing else. I only find it in cmd.exe or conhost.exe but don’t know the ID

Reply
gravatarJon Scaife

Hi.
This art­icle was writ­ten in 2011 and was based on Win­dows 7. All the details are cor­rect as of that time. It might be that Microsoft have changed a few things in the 9 years since and that have with much else in Win­dows 10.

Reply
gravatarHL1234

Es gibt noch ein­en klein­en Fehler:
nicht
%SystemRoot%\system32\inetcpl.dll
sondern
%SystemRoot%\system32\inetcpl.cpl

Sonst super — Vielen Dank

Reply
gravatarAdvocatusDiaboli

Erstk­lassige Übersicht!
Bitte diese Zeile kor­ri­gier­en: %windir% system32 inetcplc.dll (Inter­net Con­trol Panel)
Richtig ist (Win7 und Win8): %windir% system32 inetcpl.cpl (Inter­net Con­trol Panel)

Reply
gravatarAlex

Is it nor­mal for some of them to “not work?” I’m on Win­dows 10 and my folder icons do not change when i pick and apply icons from spe­cif­ic .dll files while oth­ers work just fine.

Reply
gravatarAnjul

Great job present­ing the list in such an organ­ised man­ner, leav­ing no query. Thanks guys.

Reply
gravatarSan

On Win8.1 the bluetooth icon has much bet­ter res­ol­u­tion in
C:\Windows\System32\bthudtask.exe, 1
though the one used in the tray item “Bluetooth Devices” is really
C:\Windows\System32\bthprops.cpl, 3
I’ve tried the one from
C:\Windows\system32\netshell.dll, 104
but it becomes very dis­tor­ted in tray.

Reply
gravatarBearPup

Thanks for dis­play­ing the icons — very use­ful to know where to look for spe­cif­ic icons.

Reply
gravatarJon Scaife

Thanks. I did­n’t want to post indi­vidu­al icons with their trans­par­ency as I think that’s push­ing the copy­right side of things too far but any­one with Win­dows on their PC can now grab the icons them­selves eas­ily enough 🙂

Reply
gravatarJon Scaife

Down­load IcoFX 2 (ver­sion 3 is no longer free) from our down­load page and install that. Go to file: open, and change “files of type” to “win­dows bin­ary”. Then select the .dll file of choice. In the win­dow that appears select the icon you want to extract and click the extract but­ton. In that new win­dow (the icon itself) select the size you want from the left hand column, right click on it, and select “export image”. I’d change the save as file­type to PNG, but it’s up to you — then just save it.

Reply
gravatara

Actu­ally the “imageres.dll” I got shif­ted (Show desktop Icon is 105 not 106 :))

Reply
gravatarMarek Podgorny

Num­ber­ing starts from 0, so it did­n’t shift.

A file you haven’t men­tioned is mmres.dll, which con­tains media icons.

Reply
gravatarJon Scaife

Cheers for your com­ments Marek — I’ve added details of mmres.dll. You’re also cor­rect that num­ber­ing starts from 0 — thanks for point­ing that out 🙂

Reply
gravatarLargeVirus

I found some dlls and exe files with icons in them, e.g. zipflrdr.dll
There are oth­ers if you go look­ing in the system32 folder.

Reply