This may sound like trivia but it isn't for me.



With the latest update of Office, the WORD icon in my taskbar has changed - some mumbo-jumbo from MS about reflecting the integration of CoPilot.

The reason it isn't trivial is that I am used to the old icons and as a result I navigate to them without hesitation. I see no reason to learn new icons - that's of no value to me - and the new ones are just anonymous coloured squares - in the case of Word with a tiny "W" in the corner. Excel has an equally tiny "X".

So I thought I'd change the icons . . . I go through the usual "change icon" routine and get a reasonable choice - but the changes don't take effect.

I hate being bullied by MS like this - is there a workaround for me ? Maybe I have locked the taskbar in some way ?

Maybe there are some "registry hacks" that you can use to customize the icons, or rather replace them with other icons. I am not sure.

__________________
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

Microsoft 365 apps for business
Windows 11 Professional

Click on the image below to see a short YouTube video of how to change the Taskbar Word icon to a preferred one.
I’m using a modified version of Windows 11 (25H2) so it may be slightly different on your version of W11 but it hopefully will give you an idea of what to do.
Note: When you have created a sub-folder that contains the new Word .ico file in a location of your choice, it must remain in that folder otherwise the link between the ‘new’ Taskbar icon will be broke and a blank icon will appear in its place.



I hope this helps you and others out.

Thank you.
That IS what I was doing, but the change was not applied.
However, after yesterdays Windows 11 and Office 365 update, changing the icon is now working as expeected.