How To Resize Desktop Icon In Windows 7 or Vista

Do you find the icon size on Vista desktop too big or too small? The effect of visual appearance on shortcuts and programs icons is more stark when users adjust and change the monitor screen resolution or font size in DPI scaling, where the icons size becomes bigger and smaller to an uncomfortable level. Users can easily resize Vista desktop icons or change the size of icons on Vista desktop. There are four methods to resize the desktop icons, depending on your preference and also the ’size’ that you want to change the icons to.

ALZipVistaDesktopIcon

Mouse Wheel Method

The option to select from only three available sizes wasn’t satisfying enough, so I found another method. Make sure the desktop has the focus, just click anywhere on the desktop before starting this process. Press & hold Ctrl on the keyboard, Scroll with the mouse wheel up or down to get the desired size.

image_thumb_3

Using ‘Color And Appearance’ Method

The above method was actually much better. You can have variety of sizes and one for sure will suit you. But what if you don’t have a mouse wheel?, the closest I could find is to do this: Right click on an empty spot on your desktop and choose Personalize, now choose the first item on the list Windows Color and Appearance,  and then click the last link Open classic appearance properties for more color options.

window-color-and-appearance

You will get the Windows XP type dialog. Click on Advanced, Under Item choose Icon, Set the size to your liking. Range from 16-72, hit OK and again hit OK on the second dialog.

011308-2030-windowsmail2

Registry Tweak Method

If you like to tweak around the registry (like I do), then that can be set under that key,

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\WindowMetrics

Using the first method it will instantly update the icon size on your desktop and you will see the changes, while working through the registry I couldn’t get it to refresh without logging off first. I tried F5 on the desktop and choosing Refresh from the shortcut menu on the desktop, but it had no effect. Note that changing the icons with the registry key manually will also reflect on the Windows Vista dialog and vice-versa.

I am sure I haven’t missed any method to resize the icons, but if I have, do let me know about it.

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91 Comments

  1. Posted May 24, 2010 at 1:28 pm | Permalink

    great tips thank u

  2. David
    Posted May 25, 2010 at 5:12 pm | Permalink

    Mousewheel method works great!

  3. kristina
    Posted May 26, 2010 at 4:32 pm | Permalink

    mousewheel method is very effective tnx!!!

  4. Chris
    Posted May 26, 2010 at 8:06 pm | Permalink

    Excellent, love the mousewheel technique, very fast and efficient. Thanks!

  5. Ryan
    Posted June 1, 2010 at 5:40 pm | Permalink

    Mouse Wheel Method is so cool.. it really works.. Thanks a lot

  6. Laura
    Posted June 1, 2010 at 9:56 pm | Permalink

    Mouse wheel method a piece of cake! Thanks!

  7. Jay
    Posted June 2, 2010 at 10:31 am | Permalink

    Have to agree. anything with the mouse wheel ROCKs

  8. Adam
    Posted June 3, 2010 at 1:54 am | Permalink

    Your registry location is useful for changing the distance between icons and some other settings, but not the size of the icons. Same for the advanced settings. Another method is to Right click -> View -> select between Small, Medium, and Large

  9. Ross Johnston
    Posted June 5, 2010 at 12:50 am | Permalink

    Ya learn something new everyday, I had no idea it was so simple to enlarge icons using the mouse wheel. Perfect! I do have some icons that remain small (e.g. iTunes) but make a larger “blank space” around them…so those I’ll need to tweak…but for the most part it doesn’t get easier than this.

    Thank you for the tip!

    RJ

  10. E
    Posted June 5, 2010 at 1:10 pm | Permalink

    Hahahahhahahahahah……..Coool!

  11. Posted June 5, 2010 at 10:49 pm | Permalink

    g8 tips… i was looking for icon resizing

  12. Lynne
    Posted June 7, 2010 at 3:14 pm | Permalink

    i love learning new and or lesser known tricks/functions like the mouse wheel resizing! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

  13. Patti
    Posted June 7, 2010 at 10:09 pm | Permalink

    Great, thank you! This wasn’t in the Win7 help files.

  14. Faisal
    Posted June 12, 2010 at 1:48 am | Permalink

    thanks asad, mouse wheel shortcut its works great :)

  15. khamush
    Posted June 14, 2010 at 11:50 am | Permalink

    Very Nice & Effective tricks ………………………………………………. Thanks

  16. Tiff
    Posted June 15, 2010 at 8:23 pm | Permalink

    THANK YOU! THAT WAS SO HELPFUL!

  17. jhon
    Posted June 16, 2010 at 12:31 pm | Permalink

    Thnx man!!!

  18. Dreu-X
    Posted June 27, 2010 at 6:59 am | Permalink

    Nice!! I am SO going to be messing with peoples computers…. LOL

    Such a simple little easter egg. Why aren’t things like this more well known….

  19. Bart
    Posted June 29, 2010 at 5:17 pm | Permalink

    This mouse wheel method is great! Why didn’t I accidentally find this out myself. I’m always so clumsy on the keyboard hitting the wrong key and such I could hardly have missed this error ;)

    Thanks a lot!

  20. Pinar
    Posted June 30, 2010 at 11:25 am | Permalink

    mouse wheel method is great!

  21. asd
    Posted July 4, 2010 at 8:06 pm | Permalink

    Nice! The mouswheel trick is like so obvious!

  22. Coach
    Posted July 10, 2010 at 7:37 pm | Permalink

    Tks much, the wheel worked fine.

  23. Posted July 15, 2010 at 4:00 am | Permalink

    Man, that icon re-sizing fix worked super fast and perfectly !!! Thanks so much.

  24. Peno :D
    Posted July 18, 2010 at 12:09 pm | Permalink

    Thanks so much, finally the smallness is over!!!!

  25. guy
    Posted July 23, 2010 at 7:17 am | Permalink

    Top tip works with Windows 7 as well. Thanks

  26. Joseph Souders
    Posted July 24, 2010 at 9:03 am | Permalink

    That mouse wheel tip… WOW! Thanks for that one!

  27. Paul T
    Posted July 25, 2010 at 10:33 am | Permalink

    mouse wheel! -who knew??

    - thanks from a new Windows 7 user

  28. Stephen
    Posted July 25, 2010 at 9:41 pm | Permalink

    Thanks for the tip. Mouse wheel worked great. Now if I can get my roommate to stop changing the settings on my comp. lol.

  29. Posted July 27, 2010 at 10:13 am | Permalink

    You are a life saver. I accidentally increase the size of my desktop icon by 4x and the mouse wheel solved the problem. The help icon was of no help what so ever. What else do you know that I should know????

    Thanks Again!

  30. ali
    Posted July 28, 2010 at 11:05 pm | Permalink

    Mouse wheel option really nice….thanks

  31. Anggel255@gmail.com
    Posted August 5, 2010 at 2:26 am | Permalink

    10x a lot bro !

  32. kenny
    Posted August 7, 2010 at 8:04 am | Permalink

    thx, i was looking high and low on how to make the icon smaller…

  33. Posted August 9, 2010 at 8:24 am | Permalink

    Well, yeah. Thank you! No mouse wheel for me, just a laptop pad and the 2nd one works. Not as small as I would like… but its better!

  34. Sam Sommerfeld
    Posted August 15, 2010 at 5:28 am | Permalink

    I took your advise and started playing around with the sizes of different things – now everything is either too big or too small to a point where i can no longer access parts of my computer – nightmare. is there any way or restoring the original “default” size settings?? Need help.. quick!

  35. TriodeGirl
    Posted August 24, 2010 at 1:51 pm | Permalink

    Mouse wheel control – so simple, once one knows :)

    Many thanks for sharing.

  36. Lau
    Posted August 25, 2010 at 8:33 pm | Permalink

    It works! you deserve credits – sponsors clicked. Thank you!

  37. rahul
    Posted August 25, 2010 at 11:46 pm | Permalink

    The mouse wheel technique is just awesome.. really loved it

  38. Posted August 26, 2010 at 8:20 pm | Permalink

    works great ow u 1

  39. tom
    Posted August 28, 2010 at 10:40 pm | Permalink

    that just saved hours. now how do you change the icon text color in win7 ultimate? option is greyed out in the desktop appearance settings…..

  40. dropgoods
    Posted August 30, 2010 at 1:54 pm | Permalink

    thanks a lot

  41. Helenco
    Posted August 31, 2010 at 2:16 am | Permalink

    Great stuff! Thanks Mousewheel did the trick

4 Trackbacks

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