r/windows • u/NewerEddo Windows 10 • Jul 18 '25

Feature Windows95 icons (pifmgr.dll)

Gallery image

Gallery image

484 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

34 comments sorted by

50

u/coffeetbl Jul 18 '25

Icons used to look so fun

33

u/Phayzon Jul 19 '25

Amazing that these icons, created within a 16-color palette and confined to minimal resolution, show more detail and color variety than nearly everything pre-installed on a modern OS.

8

u/diamondjim Jul 19 '25

8-bit design is a fascinating domain to explore. Some artists still push the envelope and achieve spectacular results with such limited means.

7

u/Inevitable-Study502 Jul 19 '25

8bit had 256 colors, this is 4bit 16 colors

2

u/hff0 Jul 22 '25

Now you get "free" "2025" "festival" messy labels and wrong ugly vectors

23

u/Lucas006BR1 Windows 11 - Release Channel Jul 18 '25

that red apple with a bite

5

u/nucleartaco04 Jul 19 '25

Satire at its finest

5

u/hoofglormuss Jul 19 '25

they got us back by showing a bsod on networked windows machines

5

u/Lucas006BR1 Windows 11 - Release Channel Jul 19 '25

Yeah, and they continue showing that

18

u/cokyecrizp Jul 19 '25

can still be found in windows 11

14

u/-ThreeHeadedMonkey- Jul 18 '25

You can tell that back then dedication and passion went into the design of things. 

9

u/Sinnapels Jul 18 '25

Sword with shield was always WC2.exe for me

3

u/[deleted] Jul 18 '25

[deleted]

1

u/hawkeyebasil Jul 21 '25

Yes! same. Hahaha

1

u/McGondy Jul 20 '25

Battlechess.bat for me

5

u/watchOS Jul 19 '25

I’ve definitely used some of these before, such as the spiky ball and chain, and the dynamite.

3

u/FMmkV Jul 19 '25

Ahh my dad used the dinamite for Blake Stone shortcut. Those were great times...

2

u/Creek5 Jul 19 '25

Wasn’t there a tree one?

9

u/39342 Jul 19 '25

If this is the one you're referring to, it's now stored in shell32.dll for some reason.

2

u/Ok-Hotel-8551 Jul 19 '25

State of art.

2

u/hff0 Jul 22 '25

I discovered this when I was younger and I set my folder icons to it.  That was fun

1

u/Relative_Spinach_245 Jul 19 '25

How do you make this?

5

u/NewerEddo Windows 10 Jul 19 '25

Right click a folder > Properties > Customize > Change Icon > Change the directory of shell32.dll to:
%SystemRoot%\System32\pifmgr.dll > enter

1

u/HuntersPad Jul 20 '25

I haven't seen some of those in such a long time!

1

u/SAD-MAX-CZ Jul 20 '25

Love the good old clipart style icons, that were clearly recognizable, plastic and colorful. Modern icons are flat, dull and unclear.

2

u/redrider65 Jul 21 '25

Yeah, instantly recognizable.

1

u/tcSnipe Jul 20 '25

I used the Dynamite for Doom and the Spike ball for Hexen. I think.

1

u/Unusual_Champion4003 Jul 21 '25

Nostalgic and magical feelings

1

u/Tonicito99 Jul 21 '25

Where i downloading it....WHERE?

1

u/hff0 Jul 22 '25

Anyone like me love winlogon.exe so much

1

u/sir_bullion_bullier Jul 22 '25 edited Jul 22 '25

I remember back in the day when I learned of moricons.dll in Win 3.1 and I loaded it up in the icon picker and just looked through all the icons. It was fun just browsing through them. Icons were so much more interesting to look at in those days.

1

u/Skott_stabb Windows 10 27d ago

It sucks that icons don't look like this anymore.

-6

u/paladincubano Jul 19 '25

Nice, no woke icons