Customise your USB thumb drive

^ Screenshot of what USB stick looks like in My Computer.

Add a icon to your USB thumb drives to make it unique and also help distinguish between devices.

What we are going to do in this tutorial is create or use an icon (.ico format) and make it the icon for a USB thumb drive. By experience this will only work on Windows Xp, Vista and maybe 2000 but not for Windows 98se or lower.

I can't teach you how to make your own icon, maybe i can hellp you convert a .gif or jpeg file to a .ico file but in this tutorial I won't cover how to create a custom icon. Search Windows folder for ".ico" files for some cool icons.

OK, first of all what we are going to do is create an Autorun.inf file which is what they usually use for CDs and DVDs that has something pop up automatically like installer windows etc (aka AutoRun) To make it clear which device to assign the icon to and
to allocate the icon to be used no matter what computer you plug the USB into
we are going to create an autorun.inf file and place it and the icon file into the USB drive.

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Open up Notepad.exe:

Type in:
[autorun]
icon=logo.ico

File > Save as "Autorun.inf" into your USB drive

Copy your icon file into the USB drive too (make sure the icon file is named as "logo.ico" else you will have to edit "icon=newfilename.ico" in the Autorun.inf file but its easier renaming the icon file.

Unplug the drive and now re-plug it, Tar-Dar

To make the USB drive folder neater:

Right-click the two files and click properties and check the hidden boxes for both files.

Tools > Folder Options > View > Do Not Show Hidden Files or Folders (hides hidden folders throughout your computer, can be a drastic change for you, "Choose Show Hidden Files" or Folders to restore back to showing hidden files. )

That will make your file hidden so they never get in the way.

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Just recently did this for fun to all my USB sticks, if you’re silly enough or for what ever reason what your own photo or face on it, you can always send me photo and I can make it into an .ico file for you or you can use software out there that does that too. Remember pictures should be simple as icons are 32 by 32 and you’ll have hardly any detail if you place a huge picture for me to convent. Also if you have .exe files such as games, software etc. that you want to use the logo for (private use) you can try this free and wonderful program called rainbow iconextracter.