Making Large Icons for Vista?

I thought I have done this before without problem, but not so lucky this time.

I made a set of icons today size 256x256 in photoshop and the problem I have is that when I set a shortcut or file to use the new icon it shows up fine as the standard 100x100 or what ever size that is, and it can also shrink down fine to the smallest view you can set in Vista for your icons, but when I use "view large icons" or "view extra large icons" the image does not get bigger it still stays small.

I tried to use a plugin for photoshop to make icons directly and I also used irfanview to convert from .jpg to .ico both do not seem to work.

Anybody have any idea what is wrong?

 

Had a similar problem when I was making icons.

Not too sure about the resolution needed for Vista large icons but GIMP (free image manipulation editor) seems to save .ico files properly. You might want to try that out.

If you do end up finding that resolution needed for high resolution, please let me know.

 

largest and the proper res is 256x256 I already knew that, and I tried 3 methods to make the icon.

A plugin for photoshop that saves directly to ico (even has two options .png mode for Vista or .bmp mode for compatability)

I tried converting from an image into an .ico with irfanview a very good image viewer/converter

And I tried the manual method I used to use back in the day by renaming a .bmp or .gif to .ico and changing the extension.

All 3 methods produced an icon and the icon is the right size internally but for some reason Vista refuses to scale it up past the medium icon size. The box and selection area of the icon grows but the picture just stays the same size and in the center.

I am thinking its some flaw in how vista is handling the icon since its not a default windows high quality icon, not a flaw in the icon itself.

Edit: just tested at work on my laptop I figured it out.

Icons do work and will go full size with the plugin.

Using the vista save function and it wont work its a .ico file but it wont show dimentions when you right click it. use the old method for XP (based on bmp I think) and it will say 256x256 and as I increase the icon view size for a folder it grew to the full high quality size.

However when I used that working icon as the icon for my shortcut it still did not grow in size like it was supposed too, so I confirmed it is an issue with how vista works with icons and not the icon itself, for what ever reason you cant have a large size high quality icon for a shortcut it has to be an original file and not a shortcut to it.

 

There should be some registry setting or something that removes the box even with small icons.

 

Yep I tried 3 methods to remove the shortcut arrow overlay and even a more extreme method of making shortucts no longer have the shortcut extension and in all cases once I apply the icon to it it wont be high quality and scale to full 256x256 anymore.

I also tried to just change a program icon to my self made icon and it wont work. Seems only "Vista" icons like folder, my computer, control panel, Stuf like that are able to use high quality icons.

I guess you would call them system icons. I have a feeling if I used one of those programs that let you change system icons it would work.

 

Hmm thats really strange, have you tried holding cntl and scrolling up? Just to see if when your icons reach a big res to see if the higher res textures are used?

 

Found a solution: http://jaredheinrichs.com/how-to-make-256x256-windows-7-icons.html

It seems between the 3 manual methods I used, the 4 photoshop plugins, and the 4 or 5 icon making programs that I tried a trial of, none of them produced the exact kind of file Vista needed to work properly.

If I used older windows icon types the icon itself would increase in size when the folder view was set for large icons but when used as an icon for a shortcut it would stay small. Also the file size was large.

When I used the .pnng compression that Vista is supposed to use the icon file size was correct but it would never grow in size when I changed the folder view.

I have no clue what the problem is, but of all those plugins and paid programs it seemss this simple free program linked in that tutorial works just fine.

Now I wonder if I can figure out how to add the -shortcut extension back to my shortcuts. I can reverse the arrow overlay and infact I'll just leave it gone since it looks cleaner without it but now all my shortcuts just look like duplicates of a file rather than a shortcut.

Edit: Ugh now its not working again after I made some nicer icons. I have no clue what is wrong.

 

Well I have it down to this so far.

The only method that has worked for me is the one I just linked, using that free icon program.

Using that program I have only got it to make a working full size icon when I save it to 256 colors, and doing that it seems to only have a 50% success rate.

I literally can save the same thing 2x and it wont work the first time but it does the 2nd.

I have both manually pasted the image into the icon program and used it batch convert function.

I have no clue why its so complicated and all these working methods for others do not work for me. But atleast I found a way and while 256 colors is not as nice as 24 or 32bit color its good enough.

Here is the first set of eyefinity icons I made to share on widescreengamingforum for other eyefinity users.



My Windows 7 got delayed by several days because I guess my credit card fraud protection kicked in and didnt let newegg charge my preorder

So I just got that fixed, in a week or so I have the fun and long process of installing my new OS, I am hoping with a clean sleight and a new OS the problem goes away.