For your customized icon to be visible, if you’re on the computer hosting the folder, make sure you’re working with the shared network folder e.g. \\yourpc\thefolder or q:\thefolder as opposed to the local folder (i.e. c:\…\thefolder).
On client PCs, you also need to enable remote paths using the following registry key:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Explorer]
“EnableShellShortcutIconRemotePath”=dword:00000001
You can also right click and save this registry file to your computer and double click it to import it into the registry. The ‘reg’ file is safe to import. You must restart Windows Explorer after making this change.
Please note: Windows doesn’t always reflect changes made to network folder icons right away. This is not a bug in our app. If you see the changes on one PC but not another, restart Windows Explorer on the affected client PC.
Note: Your custom folder icons will likely also not show up when browsing a shared Windows folder from other operating systems such as macOS or Linux as these operating systems don’t typically interpret desktop.ini files created by Windows.
You cannot apply custom icons to the shared folder itself. (these are the ‘folders’ that show up under Network when you browse a PC by its hostname/IP address). Note how Windows Explorer treats a shared folder differently:
Network>192.168.1.29
It works perfectly for any folder contained within the shared folder:
Network>192.168.1.29\New folder
This is not a bug in our app but by design because of how Windows interprets a shared folder more as a “network share” than a “folder”.
This feature should work as expected for most users. It may not work under all circumstances and for every user for a number of reasons (if this feature doesn’t work, feel free to check in with our team to try and help you figure out why). This feature assumes you know how to share a folder, how to access a shared folder, that the shared folder has sufficient permissions, and that there are no policies or restrictions in place on the client PC, host PC or network.
If your organization blocks unauthenticated guest access, see this article.