Resource Redirect

Define alternative files for loading various resources (e.g. icons in imageres.dll) for simple theming without having to modify system files.

Icon themes

An icon theme from the collection of community-contributed icon theme packs can be selected in the mod's settings. Screenshots of some of the icon themes can be found in the Resource Redirect icon themes repository.

An icon theme can also be installed manually by downloading it and specifying its path in the mod's settings. For details, refer to the guide in the repository.

A short demonstration can be found here on YouTube.

Disable folder thumbnails

The mod has an option to disable thumbnails in Explorer folders, making folders use a generic folder icon instead of showing a preview of their contents. Some icon themes may look better with this option enabled, while other themes have proper support for styling folder thumbnails. Folder thumbnails are only replaced when the "Redirect all loaded resources" option is enabled (see below).

Redirect all loaded resources (experimental)

The option to redirect all resources can be enabled in the settings. In this case, redirection won't be limited to the resource types and loading methods listed above. This option might become the default in the future.

Theme paths

Theme paths can be set in the settings. A theme path is a folder with alternative resource files and a theme.ini file that contains redirection rules. For example, the theme.ini file may contain the following:

[redirections]
%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe=explorer.exe
%SystemRoot%\System32\imageres.dll=imageres.dll

In this case, the folder must also contain the explorer.exe and imageres.dll files, which will be used as the redirection resource files.

Alternatively, the theme path can be the .ini file itself.

Supported resource types and loading methods

The mod supports the following resource types and loading methods:

• Icons extracted with the PrivateExtractIconsW function.
• Icons, cursors and bitmaps loaded with the LoadImageW function.
• Icons loaded with the LoadIconW function.
• Cursors loaded with the LoadCursorW function.
• Bitmaps loaded with the LoadBitmapW function.
• Menus loaded with the LoadMenuW function.
• Dialogs loaded with the DialogBoxParamW and CreateDialogParamW functions.
• Strings loaded with the LoadStringW function.
• GDI+ images (e.g. PNGs) loaded with the SHCreateStreamOnModuleResourceW function.
• DirectUI resources (usually UIFILE and XML) loaded with the SetXMLFromResource function.

Choosing the redirected resource file

For some files, Windows has additional .mui and/or .mun resource files. For example, when loading a resource from %SystemRoot%\System32\imageres.dll, Windows looks for the resource in these files, in order:

• %SystemRoot%\System32\en-US\imageres.dll.mui - The language-specific file. en-US may be different depending on the Windows language.
• %SystemRoot%\System32\imageres.dll - The target file itself.
• %SystemRoot%\SystemResources\imageres.dll.mun - The language-neutral file.

For overriding resources, imageres.dll must be specified as the redirected resource file, not imageres.dll.mui or imageres.dll.mun, regardless of where the resources to be redirected are actually located.

The resource lookup order then becomes:

• imageres_redirection.dll (the redirection resource file specified in this mod)
• imageres.dll.mui
• imageres.dll
• imageres.dll.mun