The desktop icons and cursors of Windows XP are not that known for being all that customizable. But we show you how you can get the most out of them for free, and for a small price.

The icons sitting on every desktop with their memorable pictures of the programs that they open. While the cursor, guided by our mouse tells us whether we should wait for the computer load, the picture is clickable, if a piece of text will open a window to another website. These two powerful features of our modern computer operating systems are extremely customizable.

Making Your Own Desktop Icons

There are many options for making your own desktop icons. You can go the freeware route and find a desktop icon maker program like, IconArt. Or you can edit your icons in MSPaint and save it as a .ico. If you have Adobe Photoshop you might have to download this plugin to enable you to save as .ico.

Changing Your Desktop Icons

  1. Right click on a desktop shortcut. Go to ‘Properties’. Click on the ‘Shortcut’ tab.
  2. Click the ‘Change Icon’. Now you have a list of desktop icons to choose from, or it’s probably actually one because the icon directory is pointed at the directory of the .exe of whatever shortcut you clicked on. So click ‘Browse’ and find your icon file in your computer. The files have to be .ico, Windows will not accept any other file format.

The only efficient way to change all of your system’s icons to something entirely new is using IconPackager. It’s a program by StarDock that allows you to change practically all of your Windows icons at once by applying ‘packages’ of icons. Microsoft themes can only change a certain amount of icons while IconPackager changes hundreds of icons.
IconPackager

Swapping Out Your Cursors

To change your Windows cursors you’ll need to go to your Control Panel, and click on the ‘Mouse’ icon, then click on the ‘Pointers’ tab. Now you’ll have the mouse pointers screen up there, you can change your cursors to any other scheme like 3D-White or Dinosaurs.

But these cursor schemes are boring. There’s another program that you need to make your cursors amazing, it’s called CursorFX, and it’s also made by StarDock, they really are doing good with all of this customization software. CursorFX allows you to have major special effects, you can completely change the look of cursors. Some of their features include trailing effects, cursor sizing, cursor mirroring, and even a dynamic shadow.

CursorFX

Desktop Icons And Cursor Tools:

IconArt
IconPackager
CursorFX

Desktop Icons Resources:

ThemeXP Icons
WinCustomize Icons
Belchfire Icons
Customize.org Icons
Graphic Styles Icons
TSS2000 Icons
DeviantArt Windows XP Icons

Cursor Resources:

ThemeXP Cursors (Be careful some may contain spyware)
WinCustomize Cursors
Belchfire Cursors
WinModify.net Cursors
Customize.org Cursors