Custom Icons Not Showing In Win 2000

[eric_darling]

Just trying to square away some anomalies...

The custom icon files I'm using for shortcuts on the desktop, the add/remove programs list and the start shortcut directory are working perfectly in my Windows XP computers (and on my client's), but on my Windows 2000 laptop, all the shortcuts fail to appear - just the default Windows logo thing. This goes for our Win 2000 server computer as well - no custom icons.

Is there a step I missed?

[csd214]

Originally Posted by eric_darling

on my Windows 2000 laptop, all the shortcuts fail to appear

If this is the standard behaviour on Win2K, I SHOULD LIKE TO KNOW *A S A P* (and not having to wait until Monday night). I'm going to publish three installers in a short time. If SUF7 is a nasty boy, I have to go for SUF6 this year.

Some of you – beta testers included – must have access to a Win2K computer? Please, could anybody give an answer this weekend?

[eric_darling]

FWIW, I was experiencing the same in the SUF6 installer on this project as well.

[JXBURNS]

I have Win2003 server if problem occurs on that as well but would need a test project to try out as busy on other things. Do have Win2000 but would need to install it on a spare machine.

John

[Adam]

Hello,

I just tested custom icons on 2 Windows 2000 machines (server and regular) and I could not replicate the issue.

- Are you using a standard windows .ico file?
- Do you have admin permissions on that machine?
- How are you adding the icon to your project?

Please attach an icon that is not working on Windows 2000 to this ticket and I will test further.

We did test Setup Factory 7.0 on Windows 2000. All of our icons work fine on Windows 2000. My best guess without further information is that you have used a Windows XP *only* icon. You're icon needs to support 16x16 and 32x32 formats in 16 colors and 256 colors in order to work with older operating systems.

Adam Kapilik

[Ted Sullivan]

Eric,

What steps are you using to create these icons? For example, you can create an icon on the desktop using either File Properties of Setup Factory 7.0 or with the Shell.CreateShortcut action.

If it was happening in Setup Factory 6.0 as well, I'd guess that it is just a bad ICO file you're trying to link to, or you never installed the ICO file, or you have supplies an incorrect path to the ICO file.

[eric_darling]

I built the ICO file using Microangelo - it works as advertised otherwise in Win 2000 if I use the custom icon feature in AMS without installing via SUF.

So, I guess you're probably right about the part that I didn't install the icon. How do I do that differently than I already am? I am including it in the build files, and it gets installed to the program files directory where I'm installing everything else. Should I be installing to another location? Like I said, it works flawlessly in Win XP.

Adam - I've sent you a private e-mail with project download instructions.

[Ted Sullivan]

OK - Here are some guidelines for making ICO files that will work on Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows ME, Windows 98 and Windows 95.

Make sure you create the following formats in your ICO file:

1. 48x48 - Win XP (32 bit)
2. 32x32 - Win XP (32 bit)
3. 16x16 - Win XP (32 bit)
4. 48x48 - 256 color
5. 32x32 - 256 color
6. 16x16 - 256 color
7. 48x48 - 16 color
8. 32x32 - 16 color
9. 16x16 - 16 color

Adding other formats can actually create problems on some operating systems. Not including a format can also create problems.

I have attached a sample ICO file that you can try in your projects.

[eric_darling]

That did the trick, thanks Ted. The only issue I have remaining is that the mini-icon in the Add/Remove control panel still doesn't appear. But I'm pretty happy with the desktop and program shortcut icons appearing normally now. This is much better.

[mugurel]

I experienced some "trouble" creating icons and showing them properly but I found out that the issue was gone when I stopped using my icons names as "icon.ico".

I used other names and all went fine. Maybe this helps someone out there.