Reg Config Issues (W10 File Type Icons)

[kosmo]

I've been using my 1st attempt at a lightened version of W10-IoT-LTSC-21H2 for a week now and it's been amazingly trouble-free. But I have one problem that I haven't been able to solve yet and i'm hoping to get more informed opinions as to whether (a) I broke something or (b) the modified OS is crippled in some unknown way or (c) i'm facing a W10 problem where what worked in W7 won't work any longer in W10.

This is a registry issue. Most of my W7 config regfiles worked as they always had. But I have one file - that sets my desired icons for specific file types (not applications) that won't "take". Here's an example:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\regfile\DefaultIcon]
@="D:\Tools\Icons\reg.ico,0"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\rtffile\DefaultIcon]
@="D:\\Tools\\Icons\\Wordpad.ico,0"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\txtfile\DefaultIcon]
@="D:\\Tools\\Icons\\Text.ico,0"

Before I began to apply my regfiles the system displayed the normal W10 system icons for each of these file types. Now it displays a generic "document" icon for all of the file types I attempted to modify. The method used in my regfile is consistent with M$'s advice (from 2021). And yet it no longer works on this installed version of W10.

There is one other quirk that also had to do with icons so I better mention it. I use an outliner app for which I have a dozen outlines in progress at any given time. In order to be able to ID them on the Alt-Tab menu I call out an outline-specific icon in the ini file for each outline so that each outline is distinctive on the AT menu. This worked fine in W7. Now it shows the application's outline - not my outline-specific icons.

(This is a single user computer. Because of that and the "UserChoice" fiasco they introduced with W8 I prefer, when possible, to install my configs to HKLM)

 

[garlin]

Using a pair of Nirsoft tools, FileTypesMan & RegistryChangesView, it's possible to snoop the actual registry edits for changing the file type icons.

For example, changing the default file icon for PNG files:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\AppX43hnxtbyyps62jhe9sqpdzxn1790zetc\DefaultIcon]
@="%SystemRoot%\\SysWow64\\SHELL32.dll,13"

You can download and run SetUserFTA, to list all the current file type associations by ProgID:

SetUserFTA.exe get | findstr png
.png, AppX43hnxtbyyps62jhe9sqpdzxn1790zetc

The reg key for the DefaultIcon isn't protected by a security hash, unlike the normal process for picking a different ProgID for a File Type.

 

[kosmo]

Using a pair of Nirsoft tools

Thanks again. I spend an hour or two last night debugging my Editor File Types.reg file and found several syntax & path errors. I've now gotten all of the applications and all but 2 of the icons working correctly so this is an "operator error" issue and not a NTL issue at all.

But (since i'm already here...) I will comment on the problems that M$ caused for us by their poorly-thought-out response to a
legitimate problem - that 3rd party apps were "stealing" default app status from other apps. They "solved" the problem by writing a "userchoice" subkey to to the "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FileExts" key with a "hash" in it that overrides anything that written in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. But the absurbity of this in some cases is shown in my NTL-modded install where most of the existing "hashed" UserChoice keys are protecting audio & video media filetypes for WMP and image filetypes for Paint - both of which I removed when building the ISO! They're guarding the "barn" - whether we want them to or not but we don't even own a horse! I deleted all of the UserChoice" key using Regedit but they magically reappeared after rebooting.

I'll look into SetUserFTA to see if it's actually quicker than using the point & drool method to redirect the filetypes in "Default Apps".