How to change the desktop icons?

[Globalti]

Just had my annoyingly unreliable Vaio completely re-imaged (whatever that means) and now it seems to be running OK except for a couple of irritations with the desktop icons.

1 - All icons have a blue box underneath with text in white, I have tried all the usual suggestions for getting these transparent but no luck so far. Any ideas?

2 - All web icons are the Google Chrome logo. How can I "capture" the logo for a site like CC so that it appears as the desktop icon? It used to be possible by dragging the symbol on the address bar onto the desktop but this doesn't work now.

Thanks!

 

[ian turner]

What operating system ?

 

[Globalti]

Er, XP office.

 

[numbnuts]

What operating system ?

 

[on the road]

Control Panel, Display (or minimise all windows and right click Properties).

 

[Globalti]

Tried all that. You can change the colour of the boxes but you can't get rid of them.

 

[Alien8]

I guess you've tried this already as it comes up a lot when Googling your question:

You need to check two things:

Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> Performance (Settings)

then on the "Visual Effects" tab select "Custom" and check "Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop".

However you also need to make sure that "Lock Web Items on Desktop" is unselected for your "Arrange Icons By" settings:

Right-click on your desktop -> Arrange Icons By and unselect "Lock Web Items on Desktop"

This works for me in that I can toggle between transparent text background and not.

 

[Globalti]

YES! Thank you, thank you, thank you! It worked!

Can I ask two more questions please?

Is it possible to get the icons to be the logos for my websites instead of the Google Chrome logo?

Since the revamp my Fn and brightness controls have stopped working as well as my volume control. Any suggestions?

 

[ian turner]

Did you edit the thread title or wasn't I paying an attention ?

Don't know about custom website icons but

I have read so many posts on this problem but none of them give the actual
solution. Welll let me tell you the reason for the Fn key not working and how to
solve it
1) Vaio laptops use the ACPI fucnction to control hardware access
like volume / brightness control etc
2) You need the ACPI driver installed
for Fn key to work
3) There is no driver for Vista but the XP driver works
just as good
4) Install Sony Notebook Control Driver for XP (Works with
Vista). You can download it from http://vaio-link.comafter providingnotebook
model number.
5) Install Sony Utils.dll
6) Install Sony Shared
Library
After this your Fn key should work. You will have to reboot your PC
though after installation

 

[Bman]

Tried uninstalling Chrome?

 

[Alien8]

Is it possible to get the icons to be the logos for my websites instead of the Google Chrome logo?

When you drag the URL to your desktop you are creating an internet shortcut which references the URL of the webpage (eg http://www.cyclechat.net/) and assigns, I guess, an icon of whatever application you have associated to the file type - so Chrome in this case.

From Chrome you can also create an application shortcut, ie a shortcut to Chrome, that will load a specific URL when clicked.

To do this in Chrome click on the spanner and then "Tools" -> "Create application shortcuts...". Just leave "Desktop" selected assuming that is the only place you want the shortcut.

Hey-presto you should have a shortcut on your desktop with the CC icon.

When you click on this it will launch a new Chrome window and load CycleChat - the only problem with this is that the new window has no tool bar.

If you're happy with that then great but if you want Chrome to load CycleChat in the normal browser, ie with toolbar, then you can set the icon of your internet shortcut to the same icon used by the application shortcut. Right-click on the shortcut and select "Properties" -> "Change Icon...". Then browse to where the application shortcut icon was stored, eg

%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Web Applications\www.cyclechat.net\http_80\CycleChat Cycling Forums.ico

(where %USERPROFILE% will be your "Documents and Settings\<user>" directory.

This should update the internet shortcut icon and which point you can delete the application shortcut from your desktop.

As an aside, you might want to create you own "ico"directory and drag all your icons in to that folder - at least then you'd have a more manageable path when changing your shortcut icons.

Well you did ask!

 

[Globalti]

You, Alien8, are a genuis! I've got lots of lovely icons now that make it so much easier to find the website I want. No tool bar as you say, but that's no disaster though some time I will try to get to grips with the second method you describe.

I see that you live near Cambridge; here's a formal invitation: you can come for a weekend in hilly Lancashire and enjoy full board and lodging and guided rides in exchange for sorting out our home computer and my laptop and my son's notepad!