Change DVD drive icon in Windows 10 with a custom *.ico file

By default, Windows 10 does not offer you an option to change a DVD drive's icon. But this limitation can be easily bypassed with a simple Registry tweak. In this article, we will see how to change the icon of your DVD drive device displayed in the This PC folder.

With Registry editing, you can make Windows 10 show a customized icon for the DVD drive installed in your PC. Here is how.

1. Open Registry Editor. If you are not familiar with Registry Editor, see this excellent tutorial.
2. Go to the following key:

   HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Icons

   Tip: You can access any desired Registry key with one click.
   Note: If the Shell Icons key does not exist, just create it.

3. Create a new string value at the above key called 11 by right clicking in the right pane and choosing New -> Expandable String value. Set its value data to the path of your icon file. I will use the CD drive icon from Windows Vista, which I placed in c:\icons:

   C:\icons\Vista CD.ico

   
   See the following screenshot:

4. Restart Explorer. Alternatively, instead of restarting Explorer.exe, you can also log off and log back in to your Windows 10 user account.

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