TileIconifier: make Windows Tiles prettier

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TileIconifier is a free portable program for devices running Microsoft's Windows 10 operating system that enables you to make program tiles displayed in the operating system's start menu prettier.

 

If you have worked on a Windows 10 system before you may know that two types of tiles may be displayed in the start menu.

First application or UWP tiles which usually are custom made and look quite good, and then desktop program tiles which usually look quite bad.

The reason for this is that Microsoft extracts the icon used by these programs and displays it as a tiny version in the center of the tile.

TileIconifier review

 

As you can see on the screenshot above, the tiles look extremely bad especially when displayed as medium sized tiles. The only tile that looks different is the Microsoft Edge tile, and the main difference is the custom background color that the tile uses.

 

Lets take a look at the same start menu after using TileIconifier for a couple of minutes. The only icon that was not modified in any way was the Edge tile, as TileIconifier can only be used to customize desktop program tiles.

 

 

TileIconifier is a powerful program but it makes basic operations easy as pie. Simply download, extract and run the program on a system running Windows 10 to get started.

The program lists all shortcuts -- of desktop programs -- in the interface on start. The table lists additionally whether the icon has been customized already, and whether the program is pinned to Start.

 

If you want fast results, select one of the program shortcuts, and click on the "medium icon" tile on the right of it afterwards.

This opens a new menu that you use to select a new icon for the image. At least one icon is displayed there by default usually as the program extracts icons from the executable file automatically.

 

 

You can select that icon then right away, or select a custom image or different file to extract icons from.

 

TileIconifier displays the optimized icon as a medium and small tile automatically in its interface then. You may change the appearance in several ways:

1. Zoom in or out of the icon using a slider.
2. Move the icon.
3. Pick a custom background color for the tile (instead of the default blue-grayish color that Windows 10 uses).
4. Disable the foreground text (usually the application's name).
5. Change the foreground text from light to dark.

Once you are satisfied with the changes hit the "tile iconify" button to apply the change to the icon.  There is also a handy reset button in case you need to start over.

Repeat the process for any desktop tile displayed in the start menu. The process should not take longer than a minute per icon, usually less unless you take your time customizing the icon.

Closing Words

TileIconifier is an easy to use yet powerful program to make Windows Tiles linking to desktop programs prettier on machines running Windows 10.

It is one of the easiest programs of its kind thanks to the automatic extraction of program icons which you may use as the new tile icon.

 

If you use the windows 10 start menu, and not one of the many alternatives such as Classic Shell or Start10, you may find the program useful.

 

TileIconifier

 

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