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I've created a notification icon that's much more visible than the existing black and white one. This icon has exactly the same size in bytes as the existing one, so I was hoping I could replace it with ResourceHacker or something and keep the digital signature, but I don't know anything about digital signatures or how I would go about doing it.

I've managed to successfully create a new explorer.exe with the new icon using resource hacker, but I don't know what to do with it.

Not that it matters, but here's my new icon, I just changed RGB settings so as to keep exactly the same size:

enter image description here

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  • No, you can't run a non-digitally-signed explorer, you get an error saying "this program can't run on this computer" Feb 23, 2018 at 4:31

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You won't be able to retain the digital signature if the EXE file is modified in anyway, unless you own the certificate the file was signed with. In your case, you want to modify the explorer.exe which is signed by Microsoft so you won't be able to modify this file and retain its signature, unless you are Microsoft that is.

Signatures are used to verify the identity of the publisher of a file. Allowing re-signing of the file would defeat the intended purpose of such signing, which is the primary means to ensure that the EXE you want to run is the EXE you know and trust, and hasn't been modified by hackers to embed exploits.

Now, you can indeed re-sign the exe after you make changes, but this signature will not be validated as being from Microsoft, and will likely cause security related errors and/or notifications.

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