Windows – Can you change the icon of a pinned IE 9 web application? And how do you do it

internet-explorer-9pinningtaskbarwindows 7

In IE 9 you have the ability to click and drag an open browser tab to the Windows 7 taskbar and pin the shortcut to the taskbar.

This has the effect of creating a pseudo-application experience where the shortcut can have it's own custom jumplist and is not grouped with other IE 9 browser tabs on the taskbar.

Windows uses the "shortcut icon" or "favicon" defined in the HTML for the icon on the taskbar. If no shortcut icon is defined, then the generic IE shortcut icon is used.

If you have a bunch of these shortcuts pinned to the taskbar that don't have different icons it can be confusing to the user which is which.

Can you change the icon of a pinned IE 9 web application? And how do you do it?

Best Answer

Start with the site already pinned and no instances of IE running.

Open the folder:

%appdata%\microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch\User Pinned\Taskbar

Launch notepad and drag the pinned icon from the folder into notepad.

The InternetShortcut section should have two entries (IconFile and IconIndex). If they do not exist they can be added. A DLL or ICO file can have multiple embedded icons. The IconIndex number is used to determine which embedded icon to use.

[InternetShortcut]
URL=http://www.superuser.com
IconFile=c:\windows\system32\shell32.dll
IconIndex=12

Save the changes and close Notepad. At this point the icon change is done, however, the taskbar won't refresh automatically.

To refresh the taskbar:

Cut and paste the shortcut to the desktop. If the icon does not remove from the taskbar, right click and select "unpin..."

Double click the shortcut on the desktop (this forces IE to read the .website format and refresh the icon).

Drag the desktop shortcut to the taskbar and delete the desktop shortcut. The new icon should be shown.

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