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You are here: Home » Change the explorer navigation button

By Abhishek Ghosh October 18, 2010 5:30 pm Updated on October 18, 2010

Change the explorer navigation button

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There is a possibility, that you like a particular theme, but you want to change the navigation button. Do you think it is very tough? Not really. Just follow these steps line by line, you can yourself change the navigation button.

 

Step 1

 

First you need a program which can open, show the contents and allow you to change the images associated with it. I recommend Resource Hacker. It™s a free tool and easy to handle even for the novice.

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Download Resource hacker from here.(Home Page of Resource Hacker)

 

Step 2

 

Now, you need to know, which particular dll file is associated with it right?

Before proceeding, you must manually take a back up of the dll. Go to the drive where your Windows 7 is installed (say C: drive), open Windows folder, go to System 32:

 

 

Find out the file named ExplorerFrame.dll ; just select it, copy it and keep it somewhere in a safe place. Though, Resource Hacker will do the back up for you, its better to get a manual back up . Close the the window (s)

 

Step 3

 

Open Resource Hacker; Open the ExplorerFrame.dll file from the same location:

 

 

 

The left pane will look like this:

 

 

Open Bitmap folder and click open the folder named 280, select 1033:

 

 

 

 

Now, open the folder named 577, Right click over the flower icon named 1033; Select it to save in other place of your choice (you will need them all later):

 

 

 

 

Now, open the folder named 577, Right click over the flower icon named 1033; Select it to save in other place of your choice (you will need them all later):

 

 

Do the same for 578 and 579 folders and the bitmaps.

 

Step 3

 

So, you got 4 bitmaps. These are default set; you will replace them with custom one. You need instruction to create them.

Open your powerful image editor (We are saying about Photoshop CS4 for example). You can use similar kind of other program.

Select Black as background color.

Create a new document with these settings:

Vim
1
2
3
Width=54 Pixels
Height=27 Pixels
Color mode=RGB 8 bit

Background contents=your background color (Black in our case).

(A) You will have to create four sets: Inactive, Available, Hover, Pressed. [Open each default set to (which we saved as bitmap) to examine closely in Photoshop.]

For each set, you must create an alpha layer. (Layer>Create a Layer)

(B) Fill the alpha layer with white color. Deselect it (disable eye tool). For the bitmap in 280 folders, just create an empty (will look black) bitmap with 1 pixel verical lines (compare and create with default).

(C) Save each file as bitmap and name them like default set (280, 578,579 and 581), save as 32 bit.

 

Step 5

 

So, almost done! Now, open resource hacker, Open the ExplorerFrame.dll file and replace each bit map:

 

 

 

Save it:

 

 

Restart! Done!

 

Note:

1. We are getting 3 sets for each action: so the animation would be like start orb.

Tagged With custom explorerframe dll , explorer frame button bmp , how to change navigation buttons windows explorer , My7CustoBox Setup exe , My7CustoBox_Setu , replace 2010 explorer navigation , resource hacker windows 7 navigation button change , windows 10 explorerframe , windows 7 resource hacker explorerframe

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Abhishek Ghosh

About Abhishek Ghosh

Abhishek Ghosh is a Businessman, Surgeon, Author and Blogger. You can keep touch with him on Twitter - @AbhishekCTRL.

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Comments

  1. AvatarKaran says

    August 19, 2012 at 5:35 am

    You should elaborate Step 4 properly.Not everybody reading your post is a software engineer.
    Or at least tell what do we overall need to do in photoshop.

    And your aim was to change the navigator buttons but you ended by saying ‘we are done’,you should have shown the changes.

  2. AbhishekAbhishek says

    August 20, 2012 at 12:37 am

    Do not get angry! That step is actually itself quite bigger and about Adobe Photoshop’s Alpha Layer. Please check either Adobe Photoshop’s Help menu and search for Alpha Layer or you can ask in forums.adobe.com/community/photoshop or check in PSD Tut Plus like tutorial website.

    There are some small free softwares available to change navigator buttons / navigation buttons. Almost two years has passed since then and honestly I have forgotten the name of the software. Closer I found is color changer –

    http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&q=navigation+button+changer#/d2i16ke

    .

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About This Article

Cite this article as: Abhishek Ghosh, "Change the explorer navigation button," in The Customize Windows, October 18, 2010, July 2, 2022, https://thecustomizewindows.com/2010/10/change-the-explorer-navigation-button/.

Source:The Customize Windows, JiMA.in

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