Saturday, October 29, 2011

Make invisible/secret icon in Windows 7 Taskbar

Its been a year or more while I started using Windows 7 and officially it was launched few months ago. Anyways, you might have seen the simplicity and usefulness of this dock type taskbar.



In order to make a secret icon in task bar, first of all it needs to be invisible and only the person who made it should know the location, in order to use it. Ok now lets begin with making invisible icons, so how to make a program’s icon invisible ?


For this we will need a software program, of which we want to make icon invisible. Lets take Mozilla Firefox internet browser which we want to keep in taskbar invisible. Secondly, we will need a tool called Resource Hacker which will be used to make the Firefox icon invisible. Because you can’t convert any program’s icon by customising its properties.


> Resource Hacker can be downloaded from here and its a freeware. After downloading, you will need not to install it, just extract the downloaded zip file. And fire up “ ResHacker.exe “ file by right click and selecting “ Run as Administrator “ option.

After you have opened Resource Hacker, you will need to select the file for which you want to make icon invisible. For this go to File>open and select the location of Firefox executable file.

Make invisible/secret icon in Windows 7 Taskbar

> Click on open button and it will appear like this:

Make invisible/secret icon in Windows 7 Taskbar

> Now click on “ Action “ from menubar and select “ Replace Icon “, then this window will appear:


Make invisible/secret icon in Windows 7 Taskbar

> Select “ Open file with new Icon… “ then go to ” C:WindowsSystem32 ” location and select “ shell32.dll “ file to open it.


Make invisible/secret icon in Windows 7 Taskbar

> Now select icon number 52 and click on Replace button.


Make invisible/secret icon in Windows 7 Taskbar

>> Again you will need to replace one more set of icons, for this repeat the process again to open Replace icon window and select 32512from right pane.


Make invisible/secret icon in Windows 7 Taskbar

> Click open file with new icon, select “ shell32.dll ” and icon number 52. Click on Replace button.
Press “ Ctrl+S ” to save the new file that will be having invisible icon and will be created in respective Firefox folder with the old file existing too under name of “ mozilla_original.exe “.

Make invisible/secret icon in Windows 7 Taskbar

> Now right click on “ firefox.exe “ and select “ Pin to Taskbar “ to make it appear on taskbar. Now drag the invisible icon to extreme left side and it will appear like this (while mouse is over it) :

Make invisible/secret icon in Windows 7 Taskbar

Icon will be completely invisible, like transparent taskbar and it can be used as secret program launcher !

Note :- that when you will update the firefox then again you will need to do all these to make the icon invisible.

In the same way you can also make invisible/secret icons for other programs and place it in taskbar. If you have any problem then leave comment below.

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