It's shockingly easy to create your own icons in Windows XP. Let's do it: Click
Start, click
All Programs, click
Accessories, and then click
Paint. On the Image menu, click
Attributes. Type
32 for both the
Width and
Height of the document, and make sure that
Pixels is selected under
Units. Click
OK to create a new 32x32-pixel document: the size of an icon.
Now add type, color, or do whatever you'd like to your image. I like to shrink photos (headshots work best) to 32x32 and simply paste them into my Paint document. When you're finished, open the
File menu and click
Save As. Use the dialog box to choose where you want to save your file, then give it a name followed by ".ico" (without the quotes), and click
Save. (The extension ".ico" tells Windows that it's an icon file.) You just created an icon! Now you can change any shortcut or folder to your own icon—just browse to it on your hard drive.