Display DLL files with separate icon(Windows XP, Vista, 7)

               As a standard, all DLLs are given a single icon by the system. You would rather like to use a unique icon contained within each DLL file for display in the Explorer.
              With a small change in the registry, you can change the appearance of the standard icons. In order to change the DLL icons, type ‘regedit’ in the search field of the start menu or in the ‘Run’ dialogue and if necessary confirm the query of the user accounts manager with ‘Yes’ or ‘Continue’. Then, navigate to the key ‘HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\dllfile\defaulticon’. On the right, the character string ‘Standard’ is defined which symbol is used by the Windows system for display. For editing this, double click on this entry. Change ‘Value’ to ‘%1’ and confirm with ‘OK’. Through this parameter, the particular file will itself be referred to for the icon. Then, close the registry and open Windows Explorer.
               In the future, you will immediately recognize in the Explorer if a certain DLL contains any icons at all. All other DLL files will only get an standard empty icon.

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See icons in DLL files and extract them(Windows XP, Vista, 7)

                While searching for other program and desktop icons, you should comb through the available DLL files in the system. However, the icons in them cannot be copied easily.
                There are innumerable DLL files in the Windows system folders which contain diverse icons in addition to procedures as libraries that are already used by the system. In order to use such icons yourself, you either have to extract them from the DLL file and save as a separate ICO files, or at least know the serial number of the icon within the library. Both these tasks are easily and quickly done with the help of the NirSoft tool IconsExtract (www.nirsoft.net/utils/iconsext.html). After a short installation or unpacking from the ZIP archive, you can start the tool immediately.
                 The dialogue box ‘Search For Icons’ will appear automatically at the start. Activate the option ‘Scan icons in files’ and enter the complete path to the appropriate file containing the icons under it. Basically, you can also search through folders with subfolders or drives for this. However, it is not recommended for ‘C:’, as this can take a long time. With ‘More Options’ the selection can be limited to certain characteristics. With a click on ‘Search For Icons’, the main window shows all the matches found. They are the assigned the file name of the origin and the index numbers within this file in brackets. You will need this value, for example, to refer in the registry to a certain icon from a file. The index number cannot be determined in other dialogues by counting. All icons can also be exported individually to ICO files. For this, mark one or more, if necessary with the pressed [Ctrl] key. Then open the command ‘File | Save Selected Icons’, change the target folder and the process by clicking on ‘Save Icons’. All icons will then be in individual files which still contain the original file names and the index numbers.

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