IconViewer

In order to view what icon libraries are included within executables, DLLs or other file types, the users are usually required to perform complicated operations like decompiling.

Happily, there are specialized tools created with this single purpose: to help you easily view and extract the icons contained within a file. One of the simplest of these tools is the suggestively named IconViewer. The fact that it comes as a Windows Shell extension makes it one of the fastest and easiest ways of viewing the icons contained within files. This is also its main advantage. It is very easy to access and use for anyone, as all it requires is right-clicking the file that contains the icons, selecting the “Properties” entry from the context menu, and then opening the newly-added “Icons” tab. This additional “Icons” is in fact IconViewer’s main window, as it shows the icons that the file contains and lets you copy or extract them. Extracting means in fact saving the available icons as ICO, BMP or PNG files to any location you select on your computer.

Besides being very simple and easy-to-use, IconViewer is also neat, lightweight and resource-friendly. The icon detection is accurate and it also sports some handy additional options such as the possibility to select a specific background color for the transparent icons.

In conclusion, if you ever need to view and extract the icons contained in various files, you may rely on this tool, as it makes this task a very simple one.