Using the free software GetIcons, you can extract the icon files (.ico) from any Windows program (.exe) or Dynamic Link Library (.dll). Keep reading for the complete walk-through.
- A good start would be to download GetIcons. It’s a stand-alone application, so just extract it to a folder on your hard drive (I put it in C:\Program Files\ and then created a shortcut to it on my desktop).
- Run the program (or the short-cut to it) and click the Open button
- Navigate to the file (exe or dll) that you want to extract an icon/the icons from. Select it and click Open. In this example I selected Internet Explorer.
- If the file has more than one icons embedded in it, the total number will be listed. Internet Explorer (v6) has 22. Use the horizontal slider to scroll through each of them.
When you’ve found one you want to save, click the Save… button.
- Navigate to the folder you want to save the icon file in, give it a name and click Save.
- And now that icon will be saved as an .ico file. Repeat steps 4 and 5 if you want to exact more than one icon file from an exe or dll.
Choosing one of multiply icons seems badly done in this app.
I use IcoFX for extracting. It shows all icon present in the file together.