You are building a database or admin tool and want it to feel like part of Windows. The drive, server, network and refresh icons you need sit in shell32.dll and imageres.dll, but Windows ships no real database or table picture. Those data glyphs come from the licensed Visual Studio Image Library or from your own artwork. The Univik ICO Converter pulls the Windows icons out of the system files for you.
A database tool succeeds or fails on how familiar it feels. Open a query window that looks like it belongs on Windows and a user relaxes. Open one stitched from mismatched clip art and they hesitate before they have run a single query.
So the instinct to reuse the icons users already know is a good one. The trick is knowing which of those icons Windows gives you and which it does not, then how to get each kind the right way. That is what this guide sorts out.
The Look Users Already Trust
Every admin tool leans on a small vocabulary of pictures. A drive for storage. A server for the machine you connect to. A refresh arrow for reloading a grid. A shield when something needs permission. Users have read these shapes for years, so borrowing them shortens the learning curve of your own app more than any onboarding screen can.
Windows hands you most of that vocabulary for free, sitting inside its system files. The catch is that it hands you the operating system chrome, not the developer specific art, and the difference decides where each icon has to come from.
The Icons a Database Tool Actually Needs
Split the wish list into what Windows carries and what it does not. The table maps each common need to its real source, so you know before you go hunting.
| Icon you need | Where it comes from | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Drive and storage | shell32.dll and imageres.dll | Backups, data files, connections |
| Server and computer | imageres.dll and shell32.dll | The host your tool talks to |
| Network and connection | shell32.dll and imageres.dll | Connection status and errors |
| Refresh and sync | imageres.dll | Reload a grid or a query |
| Security shield | imageres.dll | Permissions and elevation |
| Database, table, query | Fluent icons, the VS Image Library, SQL Server or Access | Not in Windows itself, rights apply |
| Your product mark | Your own artwork | Never a vendor logo |
Operating system chrome comes from Windows. Data glyphs come from the Visual Studio Image Library or the free Fluent set. Your identity comes from art you own. Keep those sources straight and the rest is routine.
Where the Windows Chrome Icons Live
The drive, server, network, refresh and shield art all sit in two files. imageres.dll holds the modern versions that File Explorer shows today, catalogued in our imageres.dll icon list, while the older classics stay in shell32.dll, listed in the shell32.dll icon list. Pick whichever matches the era you are matching.
You rarely need to know every file by heart. If an icon is not in one file, the other or a sibling library will have it, and the complete layout appears in our map of where Windows stores its icons. For a database tool, imageres.dll answers most requests on its own.
Why Windows Ships No Real Database Icon
Here is the surprise that trips up most developers. Windows was built for people running programs, not for people writing them, so its shell libraries never needed a database cylinder, a table grid or a query symbol. Search shell32.dll or imageres.dll all day and you will not find them.
That is not a gap to fill with a random cylinder from a stock pack, since a mismatched style is exactly what makes an app feel pieced together. The real database icons do live on many machines though, just not inside Windows itself, and the next section is where to find them.
Real Database Icons Live in SQL Server and Access
There is a sharper source than any stock pack, and it may already be on the machine. The programs that manage databases show the exact database, table, query and connection icons users tie to the work, because they display them all day. If SQL Server Management Studio or Microsoft Access is installed, that art sits inside their own program files.
SQL Server Management Studio keeps its Object Explorer art, the database, table, view and stored procedure pictures, inside Ssms.exe and the resource files beside it under the Common7\IDE folder. Microsoft even documents what each of the Object Explorer icons stands for, which makes matching the right picture to the right idea quick.
Access works the same way. MSACCESS.EXE, its program file, carries the table, query, form and report icons from the Navigation pane, with a handful more tucked into the shared Office resource files next to it. Aim the viewer at MSACCESS.EXE and the object icons appear in the grid.
A SQL Server or Access icon is not free system art. Pulling one to study it or match a size is reasonable, but shipping it inside a product you sell mixes copyright with trademark, and you would need that product installed to extract it at all. Reference these, then license or draw what you actually distribute.
Icon Sets Built to Fill the Gap
There is also a licensed set built for tools like yours, one that does not depend on another product being installed. The Visual Studio Image Library gathers the icons Visual Studio itself uses, sorted into common elements, actions, annotations, icons and objects, and it includes the database, table, query and column art the shell libraries lack. Because it is the same visual language Windows developer tools speak, it drops in without clashing.
It arrives with a licence you accept when you use it, and one rule stands out, you cannot use it in a way that implies Microsoft made or backs your app. Its own image and icon guidance also sets out sizes and metaphors worth following. The rights around reusing any of this, Windows icons included, are laid out in our guide on whether extracted icons are legal to use.
The free route is Microsoft's own. Fluent System Icons are the modern set behind much of Windows 11 and Office, released as open source under the MIT licence, so you can use them in a product you sell at no cost. Thousands of clean, consistent glyphs cover the everyday interface, and because they are the current Fluent language, they give the most authentic modern feel of any option here. One line to keep in mind, the system icons are MIT, but Microsoft's brand and logo icons are not, so leave those out of your own identity. For WPF and UWP, community packs like MahApps.Metro.IconPacks bundle these and other open sets ready to drop into XAML.
Stay Clear of Product Logos
There is a tempting shortcut to avoid. The polished SQL Server, MySQL or Oracle logo is right there, and dropping it onto a connection button feels natural. A brand logo is a trademark though, and placing it in your own interface can suggest a partnership or an endorsement that does not exist.
The safe line is the same one that applies to any mark. Naming the engine you connect to, in a dropdown of database types or your documentation, is ordinary and expected. Rebuilding your product identity around someone else's logo is not. When a real logo has to appear, get written permission first.
A vendor logo on your toolbar is the fastest way to invite a complaint. Reference database engines by name, use a neutral database glyph for the generic idea and keep every brand mark out of your own branding unless you have permission in writing.
Pulling the Windows Icons You Need
Once you know which Windows icon you want, lifting a clean copy is quick.
- Name the icon and its fileDecide on the drive, server or refresh art you want and whether it lives in shell32.dll or imageres.dll, using the catalogues linked above.
- Open that file in a viewerLoad the system file in an icon viewer. Recent Windows keeps the art under SystemResources, and the viewer follows that automatically.
- Read off the indexNote the number beside your icon, the value a shortcut or the registry expects, with the rules explained in our guide to finding an icon index.
- Export at your shipping sizesSave the icon at the sizes Windows asks for, a baseline of 16, 24, 32, 48 and 256 pixels in Microsoft's app icon guidance, so the shell only ever scales down.
The same approach works on any EXE or DLL, and extracting icons from EXE or DLL files covers the full method.
Open shell32.dll or imageres.dll, find the drive, server, network or refresh icon and export it ready to drop into your build.
Free Download See All FeaturesShip Your Own for Anything You Distribute
Reaching straight into a system file is perfect while you prototype. For the build you actually ship, treat it as a risk. A system index shifts across Windows releases, so a product that pins one can show the wrong picture after a user updates, and the Windows art is not yours to hand out in the first place.
The clean answer is to fold the icons you need into your own resource file at build time, whether they started as licensed Image Library art or your own drawings. You can turn any artwork into a proper icon by following converting PNG to ICO, and from then on your app carries its own look, steady across every version of Windows it runs on.
Frequently Asked Questions
Written and maintained by Leena Taylor Paul and the Univik team, developers of Windows data conversion and recovery software since 2013. We field this question from database tool builders all the time, why the drive icon is easy to find and the database icon is nowhere, so this guide is the routing map we wish we had handed them sooner. Last verified August 2026. Building a tool and stuck on icons? Contact our support team.