[GUIDE] How to make custom icons for non-Steam games

[Sopwith]

This is a guide for those who want to make their non-Steam games have custom icons. You may be here because you can't find a good one online, or because Steam's built-in custom-icon solutions aren't working well for you. This is also useful for people who link MS-DOS games to Steam (see http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/12/558749824878174708/) and who don't want to stare at a list full of "DOSBOX" icons.

DISCLAIMER

This guide assumes you have some capacity to capture or make your own icon images (in .PNG format). I can't lead you through that. Personally, I do this by taking or finding a screen capture image of something I want to make an icon out of. Then I either make the entire image the icon or isolate a particular part of the image (say, a game character) and make the rest transparent. Useful programs for doing this image manipulation (assuming you don't have any) are PhotoFiltre 7 (freeware) or GIMP 2 (also freeware). So that things don't get distorted, your finished and desired icon image should be in a standard square icon size (a multiple of 32x32 is best - I prefer 96x96 or 128x128).

There of course are better, more professional ways of doing this for those people who have above-basic computer image / media skills. I don't really fall into that category, so here's the way I've figured out how to do it given my skill-set. :) It's also possible that icons made in this way are limited to 256 colours, I'm not sure. But those are plenty enough for me...

YOU WILL NEED

- An image (either with or without transparent parts) that is perfectly square and that you want to make into an icon for a particular game.
- The freeware program "Advanced BAT to EXE Converter" ( goo<dot>gl/GvMdSN )
- Patience

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Ensure the image file you want to stand as your icon is in .PNG format.

2. Go to the following website and convert your .PNG to an .ICO icon file: http://convertico.org/

3. Save the .ICO icon file somewhere you'll remember. (I use the Desktop for convenience.)

4. Open Advanced BAT to EXE Converter, and just click the second icon from the left - looks like a weird skinny window being smushed with something in it. This will allow us to make an "empty" .EXE file, which won't run a thing, but will carry the full-size icon we want for Steam to use.

5. Name and find a place for your new "Empty Icon" .EXE. I typically put mine on the desktop, and name it "icon.exe"

6. In the window that appears, on the far right, click the "Select Icon..." button, and browse to your newly-made .ICO icon file.

7. Click "Build EXE" near the bottom of the window. Voila, we have our icon .EXE that Steam can use.

8. For good form, place the .EXE and the icon in the game's directory, or somewhere safe where you won't delete it. I'm pretty sure if you delete, move, or rename the .EXE after the next step, the icon will fail to load in Steam.

9. In Steam, go to the properties of the game in question, and "Choose Icon". Browse to the empty .EXE file you just made.

10. Enjoy custom-icon goodness!


Again, I know there are better ways, but this is what I've found out, so I'm sharing. I think for a long time before now whenever you would do what I prescribed here, it would create a big ugly "shortcut" image in the icon. No more, though!

I don't know about you, but nothing makes a game more inviting than having a nice sexy icon saying "Hey baby, you want some sugah?" ... Or is that just me?

Hope this helps someone out there.

EDITOR'S NOTE:
If you find your shortcuts created in this way give you a very large and annoying "shortcut arrow" in the bottom-left quarter of the icon, see my solution in the first comment below. I did this on a 32-bit OS and had no problems with the stupid arrows. And I also wish Valve would patch this out, or at least make this behaviour optional.

[Sopwith]

Upon reformatting (from a 32-bit to 64-bit OS - don't know if that matters), I noticed that many of my non-steam games got a "shortcut arrow" in the bottom-left. I had come across this problem long before, and didn't know how to go about fixing it. Years later, when I got to writing this guide, and tried what I thought was the same method again, there were no arrows, so I declared them dead. What a fool I was. This time I tried a number of possible solutions, including some manual OS registry hacks, but nothing worked. I was about to give up hope, to lead a life constantly overlaid by a small, annoying, condescending little arrow in the bottom-left corner of my life...

There are three solutions that I found:

1) Use "Vista Shortcut Overlay Remover": Google, download and install this program. Run it and select "No arrow", then "Apply" and restart your computer. If you're lucky like me and the original poster of this idea ((SAS)U ID10T), then all those annoying shortcut arrows in Steam (as well as those for shortcut arrows over your entire OS) will disappear, and you will rejoice. Steam uses system resources / references to create its arrow icon, hence why (the right) registry hacks can work. This may not work on Windows 8, I wouldn't know.

2) Inject an icon into your launch program: For this you will need to download and install "Resource Hacker" (http://www.angusj.com/resourcehacker/). You begin by resetting the launch properties of the non-steam game (or just re-adding it), and assuming the icon of that launch program or file isn't the one you want (hence why you have the shortcut arrow problem), you (first, make a back-up copy of it in case this breaks something in your game) right-click on it in Windows Explorer and "Open Using Resource Hacker", then under Action -> Replace Icon. You'll need to locate the .EXE or .ICO you want to use (see below if you need to extract .ICOs from other files), then save and overwrite the original file. This should remove the annoying arrow, since we're not telling Steam to use a separate icon entity -- the program itself has the icon we want.

3) Extract or use icon picture files: You can use a program like "ByCyIconGrabber" to extract the icon files and save them as .PNG's, then link them as an icon file/image in Steam. The downside of this is that is in the "Detail View" layout of Steam, the icon appears tiny in the detail screen, where it should be larger. But there is no annoying arrow.

[Jimo]

Perhaps you should format this into a Steam guide? That way you could include pictures and it would appear on the Steam community hub.

[Sopwith]

:P I like your idea; but is there actually a way to make a "Steam Guide" for... Steam itself? <muses>

[Jimo]

You can make a guide for Steam itself, but there is no actual listing because there is no community hub for it. However it will show up if you go to http://steamcommunity.com/?subsection=guides

All you have to do is adjust the app ID to 753.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/editguide/?appid=753

I have over one hundred guides, multiple of which are listed under Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/id/jimo/myworkshopfiles/?section=guides

[Sopwith]

Sweet. Good call then. I'll look into that. Thanks for the idea. :)

[xXHassanHaqXx]

There is a much easier way to do this:
1. Open Notepad and enter START <Location of Game>
2. Replace "<Location of Game>" with the path to your .exe file
3. Click File and then Save as... and then and in the Save as type menu, select All Files (*.*)
4. Name the file "Launcher.bat" and save to the same location as your original .exe file
5. Download and install Bat To Exe Converter from http://download.cnet.com/Bat-To-Exe-Converter-Portable/3000-2069_4-10555897.html
6. Right click it and click "Run as administrator"
7. When selecting the batch file, open Launcher.bat where you saved it
8. Click on the Include tab and select your original .exe file
9. Click the Version information tab and select the icon file from wherever you saved your .ICO file in Sopwith's tutorial
10. Click the Compile button at the bottom
11. Add Launcher.exe as a non-steam game which should be located in the same folder as your original .exe file

Enjoy your new icon!

Let me know if this worked for you!

[krashd]

All of this would be unnecessary if Steam just added the ability to use the common .ico file type for icons, just a thought Steam...

EDIT: Found an even easier method still (if you are OK with altering the icon of the actual .EXE)

Method two on this page http://www.wikihow.com/Change-the-Icon-for-an-Exe-File
Using the app on this page http://www.angusj.com/resourcehacker/

Now all my GOG games no longer have the default DOSBox icon.

[Jaunitta 🌸]

Well this really needs updating there is even an easier way, what's with dos box and .exe??
I make my own icons as I felt the same no real way to identify whats on these islands,
take a screenshot F12 key) of any NPC remove your hotbar press the F1 so it's a clean screenshot then go to your screenshots DB click /opens it and use your snip tool W7 W10.
then take a regeon screenshot of it and save as eg, merchantMapIcon.png or SeaHunterMapIcon.png or SeaFisherMapIcon.png and so on, they must be named like that and saved as png to a desktop folder.
Now
in the Salt directory
C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Salt
create a folder name it Icons> and inside that make a new folder name it Map
paste your icons png into the Map folder and they appear in your maps side bar,
you can use any images even download them off the web just name them ?????MapIcon.png no spaces.
I even just took a screenshot of the high peak island and used that .
I downloaded a gravestone and some Ancient drawing type icons for those remember to name them correctly. There is a guide how to do this from Lavarboots.
https://saltthegame.com/pages/mapicons/

here's a part of my icons it's too long to include them all in one snapshot but I have a lot to cover all types.
Use your own imagination, some members create them in Photoshop. WillieSea has some really good ones as well.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=923138732

[krashd]

5 years since this thread began (and 15 since Steam began) and we STILL cannot use .ico files as icons. And yet they manage to find a reason to update Steam every 3rd or 4th day...

[Endy]

I struggled for quite some time with this... Congratulations for reading this far. You should go to Properties, click on the default Steam icon for non-Steam games, and then select "Image Files" in the File Type drop down box. The .png you wished you could use will magically appear.

[Phénomènes Mystiques]

Meanwhile in 2023, I don't need a third-party converter for this...

[MiłyChlopak]

thanks :D

[76561199418627359]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.