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ITsVISTA Tip 6: Resize Your Vista Desktop Icons

December 13th, 2006 · 17 Comments · 30,944 views
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TipsTip number 2, “Notice any Mud on Your Vista Desktop? Here’s How to Clean It” dealt with how your desktop looks. Since the desktop plays a big part in what you’ll be seeing right away, and every day on from there, here’s another desktop tip that I spotted at The UsefulTechnology Blog.

The icons in vista are a bit different than those in Windows XP. Referred to as ‘Live Icons’, they can actually be scaled to any size you like between 12 x 12 and 256 x 256. Vista offers three sizes by default that you can choose from simply by right-clicking the desktop, and looking in the View menu.

Choosing from this list will give you the following sizes:

Classic Medium Large

If you want to choose a size different from those provided, you’ll need a mouse with a scroll wheel (most modern laser mice now include this feature). Click once on the desktop to be sure you’re not in another window, and while holding down the CTRL key, roll the scroll wheel on your mouse. Rolling it back towards you will decrease the icon size, rolling it away from you will increase the size:

Smallest Largest
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Comments

  • 30 Tips for Getting More (or Less) Out of Windows Vista | ITsVISTA

    Jan 31, 2007 at 9:26 am

    [...] Resize Your Vista Desktop Icons [...]

  • Adam

    Feb 27, 2007 at 12:12 am

    Thank you for the info; it was very helpful!

  • Scott

    Mar 10, 2007 at 2:12 am

    Thanks for screwing up my computer. Can’t reset my DPI. Screens to big & can’t get to the bottom to switch it back. Restore won’t work either.

  • Joe

    Mar 10, 2007 at 10:50 am

    Ahh, you’re referring to tip 29 that shows how to adjust the DPI (http://itsvista.com/2007/01/itsvista-tip-29-use-vistas-dpi-support-to-scale-your-user-interface/). I just got done creating a new tip just for you on how to get back to the default DPI. Go to tip 43 (http://itsvista.com/2007/03/itsvista-tip-43-restore-your-480dpi-screen-back-to-normal/) and give it a try. Let me know how it goes so I can adjust the tip if need be.

  • dave

    Jun 3, 2007 at 6:56 pm

    I love pages that just tell it like it is & give the info required without making you hunt. Thanks.

    Is there any way to resize individual icons independantly? Like say, all icons ‘classic’ size, with the recycle bin massive.

  • Joe

    Jun 30, 2007 at 8:50 pm

    I don’t think so Dave, that would be cool though!

  • Kevin

    Jul 31, 2007 at 12:54 am

    I’ve been annoyed with the size of the icons in Vista for some time now. The CTRL + Scroll Wheel trick is fantastic and this is the only place that I’ve seen the tip on. (Not that I did an obscene amount of searching, your site was one of the top listed.)

    Thanks for the help.

  • Vicosia

    Nov 23, 2007 at 9:26 am

    Thanks a lot, i was searching for this :D

  • Bear

    Dec 18, 2007 at 10:29 am

    Wow Awesome!!!! I like!

  • Dean Mitchell

    Feb 25, 2008 at 7:24 pm

    Mouse resizing with scroll wheel sure is an easy and useful fix for an annoying problem.

    Thanks

  • klaus luecke

    Jun 22, 2008 at 8:06 am

    Hi – thanks for the hint. But how to resize the symbols to the ‘classic icons size’ inside of folders (e.g. I have a folder named ‘web’ on my desktop and therein some links – with symbols – to IE, FireFox etc) ? If I right-click inside the folder and select view – unfortunately, no ‘classic icons’ link is offered …
    Thanks.

  • Cheltz

    Aug 17, 2008 at 8:16 pm

    Thank you SO much, the default size of the icons on Vista were killing me. You helped me a ton!

  • Blu Ray Rob

    Dec 25, 2008 at 4:15 pm

    Thanks, fixing a computer for my daughter and I did’t like the default icon size. Such a simple adjustment.

  • TankerTrucker

    Sep 21, 2009 at 3:08 am

    Anybody know how to get the correct icon iamge from web pages? i.e. if I want to send a shortcut like Amazon.com to my desktop using
    File,Send, Shortcut to my desktop, in XP it will show the Amazon.com logo, in Vista it displays as “ie” icon….any help wold be great! I hate looking at a burch of “e”’s on my desktop.

  • Weston

    Sep 24, 2009 at 7:56 pm

    Whenever I hook up my notebook to an external display, the icons on the external display are extended below the taskbar. Does anyone know the solution for this? The icons aren’t below the taskbar on my notebook monitor.

  • Jimbo

    Oct 22, 2009 at 2:57 pm

    When I use the ctrl and scroll wheel or right click and use view, it changes the size of all icons.

    Is there any way to change just a individual icon size to larger or smaller.

    Also I used Imagicon to convert a picture off the net to icon folder but the picture itself is too small, How can I make that picture the full size of an Icon?

  • Jimbo

    Oct 22, 2009 at 2:57 pm

    I am running vista

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