Parallax 2023 Product icons (and how to change your icon
If you follow us on Social Media, you may know that a number of years back, we started making our own icons for the Autodesk platforms, to help customers identify which version of Revit they were launching, from their Quick Launch bar.
The icons were created (loosely) to use the Autodesk “Product Letters” and color, with the year placed large enough in the corner so that it would still be legible as a Full Sized icon in the Windows Quick Launch Bar. (If you use the ‘small icons’ you are sort of out of luck, i imagine).
We also had incorporated a “Product Code letter” where necessary, but this wasnt always gracefully fit in, but it got the job done.
These (which we now call the “classic” icons, have been updated to reflect that there is now a 2024 release.
This year (as i’m sure you know already) Autodesk rebranded all of the product icons, in a new style. While we originally planned to just keep the “classic” icons above, someone did point out that the older style has been around for 8 years, so we thought we would update to something new, as well.
We weren’t able to stay with the exact Autodesk Style, for a number of reasons:
- The “Opening Folder” and Drop Shadow make the “main color real estate” smaller already, and the Year Text in our old icons were barely legible as it was.
- The ‘Product Code’ text is so small (in the drop shadow), that there wasn’t much room to give, here.
- The “white on bold colors” didn’t provide much contrast, when reading these in a small area like the Quick Launch bar.
So, we went in a different direction, and made these versions that are simplified. They use the Product Code, and omit the “big letter.” (The Product Code has more data than the Big Letter, regardless). Also gone is the “Opening Folder/Piece-of-the-A” that was at left, to regain real estate. I *DID* update to the new product colors, though (which i had previously resisted, which is why Navis was still green).
These are all made from 2016-2024, as well. You can download them here.
How do i use these icons?
There are two methods for doing this, of course. Method 1 is very simple:
- Go in to the properties of any shortcut
- Click “change icon”
- Navigate to where you saved them
- Select the new icon
- Click OK
I dont like this approach, however. Its only altering the icon for that one shortcut instance, and the products show up in other places (Start Menu). Method 2 involves replacing the original Product Icon. To do that, you need to know where they live. For instance, for Revit 2022:
Product Icon: %SystemRoot%\Installer{7346B4A0-2200-0510-0000-705C0D862004}\REVT.ico
Viewer Icon: %SystemRoot%\Installer{7346B4A0-2200-0510-0000-705C0D862004}\RevitViewer.ico
We use Parallax Deploy Toolset for rolling out all software, and we have it take the new icons, change their names to REVT.ico and RevitView.ico, and replace them in that particular folder. We do this for all platforms.
This means even the Start Menu versions of the program (as well as any other shortcuts made by the users) will have the new icon.
One other thing to keep in mind: Subsequent Point Releases / Updates from Autodesk will reset these back to the Factory icons, so its nice to have an automation tool like PX Tools doing this on your behalf, as ours always redoes the process, after any Point release or software update.
(Also, dont be jealous that my Start Menu is properly organized, unlike the Windows 10 hot mess that we get with 2/3 of Adsk products going in the Autodesk folder, but none of Revit doing the same…)
So there you have it. I’m very excited about the 2023 release, as there are a lot of things in it that will be VERY practical and beneficial for our clients and our team (sorry: If you were looking for a hate post on 2023, this isn’t it). I will write more on the release itself, in the next week or so (but there are tons of posts on that already).
16 Comments
AW · 2022-04-26 at 14:56
Nice work!!
Derek · 2022-08-25 at 12:32
This is so helpful! Thank you for sharing.
Röben · 2023-07-14 at 11:37
Hey Aaron ! Thanks man… from South Africa, your a Champion for this !
Colin McCroskey · 2024-06-03 at 18:14
Revisiting this issue… Anyone have problems with this after installing Enscape 4?
– Before Enscape 4: works fine.
– Install Enscape 4, icons revert to generic.
– Uninstall Enscape 4, icons work fine again…
Aaron · 2024-09-03 at 12:22
Confirmed, Enscape 4.x is doing something twisted and janky, that is “hijacking” the Revit Programs icon. But here is whats even weirder: It isnt doing it permanently. If you kill the Enscape addin, Revit launches with your correctly replaced icon. That means the clowns at Enscape are doing something IN THEIR PROCESS to hijack the Revit icon, for some reason. What does that mean for me? Until they get their act together, Enscape 4.x aint going near ANY of our systems. They are ridiculous, between this and the licensing BS.
Colin · 2024-06-20 at 11:19
Anyone have trouble with custom icons after installing Enscape 4? (icons revert back to the original Autodesk icons…)
Christopher · 2024-07-17 at 09:37
This is grea – and I finally just decided to try it. Not sure if you’re aware, but 1) it didn’t update my “pinned” app in my taskbar – perhaps that is a known limitation, so I just unpinned the old one and repinned the new one. However, when I start a new Revit session, it is not grouping them and when it creates that new session, it doesn’t have the new icon. It’s obviously a weird windows thing that is going on, but I was surprised that the icon wasn’t persistent for some reason.
Aaron Maller · 2024-07-17 at 10:06
It actually depends on how the Icons are done. With the shorty pinned previously, it will SOMETIMES update and sometimes not. A lot of this also has to do with the state of your iconcache, in Windows (which is beyond my control). Some clients offices i have had to force clear the iconcache, and then restart the machine. At Parallax, the icons work right away. But we also recommend doing them the more aggressive “replace the ico in the product folder” vs just using a shortcut pointing at the new icon. And ours work in multi sessions, start menus, and so on.
Steve Bennett · 2024-08-23 at 11:27
@Aaron, have you tried deploying Enscape 4.x and then get the Revit icon to change to the custom icon successfully? We are finding that even after forcing the icon cache to clear via cmd line, the Revit icon will revert to factory original after launching software. This results in leaving both the custom Revit icon pinned to taskbar and after launching Revit from it and then the factory icon will show up side by side once the software is fully loaded.
Riley · 2024-10-01 at 15:48
I’ve found the same issue! We are able to change the icon for the start menu, desktop shortcut, and taskbar shortcut – however, once you start the program using any of these icons, the .exe of the actively running program appears on the taskbar and has the factory icon. This occurs for Revit 2023-2025, on Windows 11. Has anyone figured out how to change this?
My only clue so far was a suggestion on a microsoft forum to use a third-party tool to edit/repackage the .exe itself, which I’d love to avoid if possible.
Aaron Maller · 2024-10-01 at 15:54
I have asked the Enscape folks this question, on their forums. They have acknowledged that its behaving dumb, but havent answered why or if they are going to fix it.
Riley · 2024-10-01 at 16:39
Thank you for the quick response Aaron! We’ll keep an eye on their forums for a fix in the future – hopefully soon!
Aaron Maller · 2024-10-02 at 13:48
Here is the BANANAS reply from Enscape, btw: https://forum.enscape3d.com/index.php?thread/28632-enscape-4-0-specifically-4-1-1-why-is-enscape-force-replacing-the-revit-icon-tas/&postID=97197#post97197
dave · 2024-09-03 at 11:08
the icon set looks great and the toolset sounds fantastic.
One question: As we have REV 24 now and REV 25 shortly, will this update accordingly?
Aaron Maller · 2024-09-03 at 12:24
The icons were updated for the 2025 suite of products back in April. The link in the blogpost might not be up to date. Here is the new one: https://parallaxteam.sharefile.com/d-s92de8967c51949c49bc40a96edecb772
dave · 2024-09-03 at 13:53
Fantastic !! Thank you Aaron.
When I went to download the Toolset to use the icons, I got an error message: “Invalid SSL certificate.” Error code 526.
would that be something you can also help with?