Windows 7 Icon Issue

[Barry Watzman]

First, I can't find ANY Windows 7 newsgroups. Where should I be looking?

Anyway, I have some very old (1993) Windows 3.x programs that I
installed under Windows 7 [32-bit]. [In fact, they are the ancient
"Microsoft Arcade" games ... Battlezone, Missile Command, Pole Position,
etc.]

And they run ok.

BUT .... in the start menu, the icons for the games are blank, or
perhaps more correctly stated, generic. And if I right-click and choose
"change icon" it tells me that the .exe file has no icon.

Now I have these same games installed on this same computer under
Windows XP (the machine is dual boot) and they run just fine and the
icons are correct. And the games themselves work ok, and run from the
[generic] icons in the start menu.

So what is going on? I've selected "Windows 95" and "Windows XP"
compatibility mode, "run as administrator", etc. and nothing seems to
fix the icons (and, again, the programs work just fine). Can anyone
explain why these programs would have no icon, or how I could fix it?

[As a last resort, since the machine is dual boot, and these programs
are installed also under XP (where their icons appear normally), is
there a way to "export" the icons to some "icon repository file" and
then manually select the icons from that file? Also, I tried pointing
the "change Icon" feature for the start menu shortcuts to the copy of
the programs in the WinXP partition; that made no difference, same result.

Thanks.

 

[Andrew McLaren]

BUT .... in the start menu, the icons for the games are blank, or
perhaps more correctly stated, generic. And if I right-click and choose
"change icon" it tells me that the .exe file has no icon.

Hi Barry

This is normal and expected behaviour in Windows Vista and Windows 7; it
is "by design". See here for an explanation:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazinebeta/2008.05.windowsconfidential.aspx


Hope it helps,

Andrew

 

[VanguardLH]

First, I can't find ANY Windows 7 newsgroups. Where should I be looking?

The Microsoft community for Windows 7 is found at:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/category/w7itpro

 

[Barry Watzman]

Ok; in that article it says:

"I'm sure that eventually—if not already—somebody will write a little
program to extract all the icons from a 16-bit DLL and then create a
32-bit resource-only DLL with those icons, just so people who have old
icons lying around in 16-bit DLLs can continue to use them in shortcuts
on their Start menu. But I have to admit, if you write this program, you
probably won't find anybody who actually needs it. The number of
requests for such a program that have come to the Windows user interface
team: zero."

Well, he's wrong, it's not zero: it's at least one. The programs at
issue are Microsoft Arcade, and Microsoft Return of Arcade, which were
both written for Windows 3.1 and came on floppy diskette, and the
programs work ok, but I'd like the Icons back.

Can you suggest any way to get them back?

 

[David C. Holley]

You might be able to use IconSearcher to extract the icons and save them to
your machine and then use the 'Set Icon' to point to the .ico file. I just
tried it and it sorta worked. The image was a bit distorted, but I think
that that's related to the size of the shortcut and the size of the image in
the .ico file.

 

[David C. Holley]

That being said, my test only dealt with 32-bit DLL's.

 

[SC Tom]

First, I can't find ANY Windows 7 newsgroups. Where should I be looking?

Anyway, I have some very old (1993) Windows 3.x programs that I installed
under Windows 7 [32-bit]. [In fact, they are the ancient "Microsoft
Arcade" games ... Battlezone, Missile Command, Pole Position, etc.]

And they run ok.

BUT .... in the start menu, the icons for the games are blank, or perhaps
more correctly stated, generic. And if I right-click and choose "change
icon" it tells me that the .exe file has no icon.

Now I have these same games installed on this same computer under Windows
XP (the machine is dual boot) and they run just fine and the icons are
correct. And the games themselves work ok, and run from the [generic]
icons in the start menu.

So what is going on? I've selected "Windows 95" and "Windows XP"
compatibility mode, "run as administrator", etc. and nothing seems to fix
the icons (and, again, the programs work just fine). Can anyone explain
why these programs would have no icon, or how I could fix it?

[As a last resort, since the machine is dual boot, and these programs are
installed also under XP (where their icons appear normally), is there a
way to "export" the icons to some "icon repository file" and then manually
select the icons from that file? Also, I tried pointing the "change Icon"
feature for the start menu shortcuts to the copy of the programs in the
WinXP partition; that made no difference, same result.

Thanks.

Look on your shortcut properties on your XP boot, pick Change Icon, and see
what file it's looking in. It may not be the executable.
If it is, and you still can't get the icons to show correctly in Win7, try
this little program:
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/iconsext.html

I've used it numerous times on both XP and Win7 and it works great. It can
extract icons from just about any file that has them embedded and save them
in a folder to use for any shortcut you want.

 

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/category/windows7

 

[Barry Watzman]

I found a workaround solution, although implementing it for 30+ programs
was a bit tedious.

This freeware program:
http://www.brothersoft.com/easy-icon-extractor-40147.html

Will extract icons from 16-bit programs to .ICO files, which can then be
"pointed to" as the "change icon" object of shortcut's properties.

 

[Barry Watzman]

That was the problem: A ***LOT*** (most) of the icon utility programs
that I tried only worked with 32-bit programs. But the one I linked to
in my immediately preceding post did work with 16-bit programs.

 

[Barry Watzman]

That was one of the files I downloaded, but Norton Internet Security
reported that it contained malware.

First, I can't find ANY Windows 7 newsgroups. Where should I be looking?

Anyway, I have some very old (1993) Windows 3.x programs that I
installed under Windows 7 [32-bit]. [In fact, they are the ancient
"Microsoft Arcade" games ... Battlezone, Missile Command, Pole
Position, etc.]

And they run ok.

BUT .... in the start menu, the icons for the games are blank, or
perhaps more correctly stated, generic. And if I right-click and
choose "change icon" it tells me that the .exe file has no icon.

Now I have these same games installed on this same computer under
Windows XP (the machine is dual boot) and they run just fine and the
icons are correct. And the games themselves work ok, and run from the
[generic] icons in the start menu.

So what is going on? I've selected "Windows 95" and "Windows XP"
compatibility mode, "run as administrator", etc. and nothing seems to
fix the icons (and, again, the programs work just fine). Can anyone
explain why these programs would have no icon, or how I could fix it?

[As a last resort, since the machine is dual boot, and these programs
are installed also under XP (where their icons appear normally), is
there a way to "export" the icons to some "icon repository file" and
then manually select the icons from that file? Also, I tried pointing
the "change Icon" feature for the start menu shortcuts to the copy of
the programs in the WinXP partition; that made no difference, same
result.

Thanks.

Look on your shortcut properties on your XP boot, pick Change Icon, and
see what file it's looking in. It may not be the executable.
If it is, and you still can't get the icons to show correctly in Win7,
try this little program:
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/iconsext.html

I've used it numerous times on both XP and Win7 and it works great. It
can extract icons from just about any file that has them embedded and
save them in a folder to use for any shortcut you want.

 

[SC Tom]

Read the FAQ on that. It is not malware.
--
SC Tom

That was one of the files I downloaded, but Norton Internet Security
reported that it contained malware.

First, I can't find ANY Windows 7 newsgroups. Where should I be
looking?

Anyway, I have some very old (1993) Windows 3.x programs that I
installed under Windows 7 [32-bit]. [In fact, they are the ancient
"Microsoft Arcade" games ... Battlezone, Missile Command, Pole Position,
etc.]

And they run ok.

BUT .... in the start menu, the icons for the games are blank, or
perhaps more correctly stated, generic. And if I right-click and choose
"change icon" it tells me that the .exe file has no icon.

Now I have these same games installed on this same computer under
Windows XP (the machine is dual boot) and they run just fine and the
icons are correct. And the games themselves work ok, and run from the
[generic] icons in the start menu.

So what is going on? I've selected "Windows 95" and "Windows XP"
compatibility mode, "run as administrator", etc. and nothing seems to
fix the icons (and, again, the programs work just fine). Can anyone
explain why these programs would have no icon, or how I could fix it?

[As a last resort, since the machine is dual boot, and these programs
are installed also under XP (where their icons appear normally), is
there a way to "export" the icons to some "icon repository file" and
then manually select the icons from that file? Also, I tried pointing
the "change Icon" feature for the start menu shortcuts to the copy of
the programs in the WinXP partition; that made no difference, same
result.

Thanks.

Look on your shortcut properties on your XP boot, pick Change Icon, and
see what file it's looking in. It may not be the executable.
If it is, and you still can't get the icons to show correctly in Win7,
try this little program:
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/iconsext.html

I've used it numerous times on both XP and Win7 and it works great. It
can extract icons from just about any file that has them embedded and
save them in a folder to use for any shortcut you want.

 

[PA Bear [MS MVP]]

NIS is the malware! <VBEG>

Read the FAQ on that. It is not malware.

That was one of the files I downloaded, but Norton Internet Security
reported that it contained malware.

First, I can't find ANY Windows 7 newsgroups. Where should I be
looking?

Anyway, I have some very old (1993) Windows 3.x programs that I
installed under Windows 7 [32-bit]. [In fact, they are the ancient
"Microsoft Arcade" games ... Battlezone, Missile Command, Pole
Position,
etc.]

And they run ok.

BUT .... in the start menu, the icons for the games are blank, or
perhaps more correctly stated, generic. And if I right-click and
choose
"change icon" it tells me that the .exe file has no icon.

Now I have these same games installed on this same computer under
Windows XP (the machine is dual boot) and they run just fine and the
icons are correct. And the games themselves work ok, and run from the
[generic] icons in the start menu.

So what is going on? I've selected "Windows 95" and "Windows XP"
compatibility mode, "run as administrator", etc. and nothing seems to
fix the icons (and, again, the programs work just fine). Can anyone
explain why these programs would have no icon, or how I could fix it?

[As a last resort, since the machine is dual boot, and these programs
are installed also under XP (where their icons appear normally), is
there a way to "export" the icons to some "icon repository file" and
then manually select the icons from that file? Also, I tried pointing
the "change Icon" feature for the start menu shortcuts to the copy of
the programs in the WinXP partition; that made no difference, same
result.

Thanks.

Look on your shortcut properties on your XP boot, pick Change Icon, and
see what file it's looking in. It may not be the executable.
If it is, and you still can't get the icons to show correctly in Win7,
try this little program:
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/iconsext.html

I've used it numerous times on both XP and Win7 and it works great. It
can extract icons from just about any file that has them embedded and
save them in a folder to use for any shortcut you want.

 

[thanatoid]

<SNIP>

This may or may not help, but being dissatisfied with 90% of
icons of programs by all makers, AGES ago I made a __icons.dll
(__ so it would be the first one to show up in win\sys) file
with icons I liked and I use the "change icon" in the 80-90% of
cases where the original icon is either ugly or stupid or makes
no sense.

You can do the same - it may or may not help in Win7 but that's
MS's fault for continuing to use millions of lines of ancient
crappy code instead of either doing what Apple has done or
writing a REAL new OS, and your fault for using Win7 in the
first place.

I have been using 98SELite for ages, and it does everything I
want it to - faster, too.