Or put in other words: where is the icons of program files stored? I have read something about specific icon files, but I figure if that's where they're stored, there still has to be some reference in the program to the icon file where the icon is stored. Otherwise explorer wouldn't know where to look for the icon?
2 Answers
Custom icons for windows explorer are stored in the desktop.ini file inside each folder.
The icon itself is described with the IconResource tag.
Ill include an example but you can read about it on TechNet
Example Below:
[.ShellClassInfo]
IconResource=c:\SomeFolder\SomeIcon.ico
The icons for program files are stored in the exe files themselves. Windows explorer just extracts them from the embedded resources in the binary file. For non executable files it is a different story.
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Well, I have been looking at specifications of the different headers that precede the program itself in exe-files, and it doesn't mention anything about icons, so where and how exactly is the icon stored? In the following page is a description of all the headers but they do not appear to contain information on the icon. en.wikibooks.org/wiki/X86_Disassembly/Windows_Executable_Files– Alpha_PiJan 18, 2016 at 8:47