Windows 10 - Bitmap as Icon

Jul 04, 2025 Last reply: 1 year ago 4 Replies
J

I've used that heading because many years ago I found a way of getting Windows Explorer (as it was then) to show an icon sized image of a .bmp file instead of the icon of the app that opened the file. The trick was:



To display a bitmap as an icon go to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Paint.Picture\DefaultIcon and set to %1



I want to do the same for .png and .jpg files. I "think" it is standard nowadays, certainly that's what happens on my other PCs but not on my main PC, the one I live on.



At some stage I was editing graphics files non-stop and I think I changed the file association for .png/.jpg to Paint.Net but I can't for the life of me find a way to get it back to how it was.



Any suggestions please? Otherwise it's re-install time...


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P

It's ugly, merging a .reg , and you should have a backup of C: before going ahead. When I reviewed one of these previously, there were some "Brink-isms" in the file, so it wasn't a clean reset. Maybe that has been fixed.

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Make a note of the special step before merging the registry samples.

"Enable or Disable UserChoice Protection Driver (UCPD) in Windows 11 and 10 | Windows 11 Forum"

My Windows 10 JPG and PNG are still set to "Choose a Default".

Whereas the Default App, somehow my "Photo Viewer" choice is undefined as well, and is also "Choose a Default". Normally the OS makes this (Microsoft) "Photos".

Yet, if I choose "Open With", there already are predominantly Microsoft choices in the list, and GIMP isn't listed.

Something that kicks the process off, is IrfanView can grab a lot of stuff, and then presumably other associations join in later.

[Picture]

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Paul

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J

If you set the folder "view" to "medium sized icons" (or "large icons" or "extra large icons") it will show preview images for all picture files anyway.

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J

Many thanks :-)

That restores the default app for opening files but the icon in File Explorer still show the app icon, not a thumbnail of the graphics file.

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J

Yes indeed :-)

It's useful to see thumbnails of them in File Explorer, especially when looking for a graphic for a program.

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