Can I change the icon of a Chrome app pinned to the start menu in Windows 10?

Question

The latest versions of the popular browsers (IE, Chrome, Firefox) support creating a link to webpages as a "desktop app".

In Windows 10, when you pin such an app created through IE to the start page, the icon of the website gets used instead of the IE icon. When doing this with a link created through Chrome, this is not the case. The website icon shows up in the "All apps" list, and also when pinning it to the taskbar, but when pinning it to the start page the Chrome icon shows up. When checking the properties of the link, the icon is propperly set.

Is there any workaround for this?

Answer 1

Just ran across this answer at TenForums that seems to work. I'm curious to see how well it persists. The gist:

1. In the same folder as chrome.exe (in my case, C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application), there's a file called chrome.VisualElementsManifest.xml. Back it up if you like, then delete it.
2. Then change the icon of the Chrome app. (Specifically, open the Start Menu, right-click the tile whose icon you wish to change, go to More > Open Folder Location. In the folder that comes up, right-click the app shortcut > Properties > Shortcut tab > Change Icon... button and set it appropriately.)

Worked for me just now with the Chrome apps Postman and Draw.io Desktop, using Chrome 59 on Windows 10 Enterprise Creator's Update (Version 10.0.15063).

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UPDATE: the icons are still set correctly on my machine 6 weeks later, through Windows updates and upgrading to Chrome 60.