Change icon for file from PowerShell

user_4938189 0
Viewed 523

I am trying to create the URL file with a custom icon but, for some reason, it is not working. This is my code:

#Downloading ico file
$WebClient = New-Object System.Net.WebClient
$WebClient.DownloadFile("url location of the icon file","C:\Users\Public\Pictures\filename.ico")

#Creating URL file
$wshShell = New-Object -ComObject "WScript.Shell"
$urlShortcut = $wshShell.CreateShortcut(
  (Join-Path $wshShell.SpecialFolders.Item("AllUsersDesktop") "myname.url")
)
$urlShortcut.TargetPath = "https://somewebsite"
$urlShortcut.IconLocation = "C:\Users\Public\Pictures\filename.ico"
$urlShortcut.Save()

The icon file is downloaded, and the URL file is created but, the image is not changed. I've tried a few different things with no luck.

Would be nice if anyone has some input on this.

Kind regards,

shortcut-file powershell
1 Answers

The .IconLocation property isn't supported in your case, but there's a workaround:

# ... icon download code omitted

$shortcutFile = Join-Path $wshShell.SpecialFolders.Item('AllUsersDesktop') 'myname.url'
$iconFile = 'C:\Users\Public\Pictures\filename.ico'

$wshShell = New-Object -ComObject "WScript.Shell"
$urlShortcut = $wshShell.CreateShortcut($shortcutFile)
$urlShortcut.TargetPath = 'https://en.wikipedia.org'
$urlShortcut.Save()

# This updates the .url file directly to emulate what assigning 
# an icon interactively, via File Explorer, does.
@"
IconIndex=0
HotKey=0
IconFile=$iconFile
"@ | Add-Content -LiteralPath $shortcutFile

When you create a URL shortcut file (extension .url):

  • Only one writable property is supported by the resulting WshUrlShortcut object, namely TargetPath, which stores the target URL.

  • Notably, this prevent use of the IconLocation property, which is only available on executable shortcut files (extension .lnk), which are WshShortcut objects.

However, the .url file format does support custom icons (by default, the default browser's icon is used), but that requires assigning them interactively, via File Explorer.

Fortunately, .url files are plain-text, .ini-like files, so it's easy to programmatically update that file directly, so as to emulate the results of interactively assigning an icon, as shown above.

Alternatively - which may or may not be an option in your case - you can create a regular shortcut file, with extension .lnk, which - perhaps surprisingly - also works with URLs assigned to .TargetPath. Assigning to .IconLocation then works as usual.
However, there are ramifications:

  • Obviously, you'll end up with a different filename extension, and the shortcut file won't be readily recognizable as a URL shortcut by its extension.

  • .lnk files are binary files.

  • .lnk files with URLs as their target path inexplicably don't allow the URL to be edited via File Explorer later.

user_453750
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