Changing The Window Icon

This page describes code to change the icon of the main Excel window's icon.

When you are building a custom application in Excel, you can personalize it by replacing the default icon for the main Excel window with your own custom icon. You can use an ico file containing a single icon or an exe or dll file that may contain any number of icons. The code uses the Windows API functions ExtractIcon to get the icon from a file and SendMessage to send a message to the window instructing it to change its icon.

The definition of the procedure is:

    Sub SetIcon(FileName As String, Optional Index As Long = 0)
    

Here, FileName is the name of the file containing the icon, and Index is the 0-based location of the desired icon. If you use an ico icon file, Index must be 0, since an ico icon file can contain only one icon. If you use an exe file or dll file, Index indicates which icon to retrieve from the file. Many icon editors such as MicroAngelo Toolset (which I highly recommend) allow you to view and extract icons stored in any exe or dll file. Visual Studio 2010 also has some of these tools.

You can download the module file with all the example code on this page.

The code for the SetIcon function is shown below. The conditional compilation directives (#if, #else) allow you to use this code in either 32-bit or 64-bit versions of Excel.

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
' modSetIcon
' By Chip Pearson, chip@cpearson.com, www.cpearson.com/SetIcon.aspx
' This module contains code to change the icon of the Excel main
' window. The code is compatible with 64-bit Office.
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
#If VBA7 And Win64 Then
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
' 64 bit Excel
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
Private Declare PtrSafe Function SendMessageA Lib "user32" _
      (ByVal HWnd As LongPtr, _
      ByVal wMsg As LongPtr, _ 
      ByVal wParam As LongPtr, _
      ByVal lParam As LongPtr) As LongPtr

Private Declare PtrSafe Function ExtractIconA Lib "shell32.dll" _
      (ByVal hInst As LongPtr, _
      ByVal lpszExeFileName As String, _
      ByVal nIconIndex As LongPtr) As Long

Private Const ICON_SMALL = 0&
Private Const ICON_BIG = 1&
Private Const WM_SETICON = &H80

#Else
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
' 32 bit Excel
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
Private Declare Function SendMessageA Lib "user32" _
      (ByVal HWnd As Long, _
        ByVal wMsg As Long, _
        ByVal wParam As Integer, _
      ByVal lParam As Long) As Long

Private Declare Function ExtractIconA Lib "shell32.dll" _
      (ByVal hInst As Long, _
      ByVal lpszExeFileName As String, _
      ByVal nIconIndex As Long) As Long

Private Const ICON_SMALL As Long = 0&
Private Const ICON_BIG As Long = 1&
Private Const WM_SETICON As Long = &H80
#End If


Sub SetIcon(FileName As String, Optional Index As Long = 0)
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
' SetIcon
' This procedure sets the icon in the upper left corner of
' the main Excel window. FileName is the name of the file
' containing the icon. It may be an .ico file, an .exe file,
' or a .dll file. If it is an .ico file, Index must be 0
' or omitted. If it is an .exe or .dll file, Index is the
' 0-based index to the icon resource.
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
#If VBA7 And Win64 Then
    ' 64 bit Excel
    Dim HWnd As LongPtr
    Dim HIcon As LongPtr
#Else
    ' 32 bit Excel
    Dim HWnd As Long
    Dim HIcon As Long
#End If
    Dim N As Long
    Dim S As String
    If Dir(FileName, vbNormal) = vbNullString Then
        ' file not found, get out
        Exit Sub
    End If
    ' get the extension of the file.
    N = InStrRev(FileName, ".")
    S = LCase(Mid(FileName, N + 1))
    ' ensure we have a valid file type
    Select Case S
        Case "exe", "ico", "dll"
            ' OK
        Case Else
            ' invalid file type
            Err.Raise 5
    End Select
    HWnd = Application.HWnd
    If HWnd = 0 Then
        Exit Sub
    End If
    HIcon = ExtractIconA(0, FileName, Index)
    If HIcon <> 0 Then
        SendMessageA HWnd, WM_SETICON, ICON_SMALL, HIcon
    End If
End Sub

You can call this procedure with code like the following:

SetIcon "C:\Test\Chip.ico", 0

To reset the icon back to the default Excel icon, use code like

    Dim FName As String
    FName = Application.Path & "\excel.exe"
    SetIcon FileName:=FName, Index:=0

This page last updated: 2-May-2012.