256-color icons now mysteriously displayed in 16-color

[Neal Helman]

This is truly perplexing. I have a large number of 32x32 icons for a
program I'm developing on a Win2K (SP4) machine. I cannot tell what I might
have done that would cause Windows Explorer (thumbnail view) to display the
icons that should display in 256 colors in only 16 colors. They look like
garbage now. As far as I can tell, no applications other than Windows
Explorer and Visual Basic are affected. When I pull them up in IconShop,
they display correctly. Other images opened in LView Pro display correctly.
That rules out a lot of things like hardware and some palette issues, but
I'm stumped as to where to turn next. I had recently installed an image
viewer component, so I uninstalled that and rebooted -- no dice.

I'm not quite sure at this point what details are relevant to provide, so I
need someone to ask me the right questions. If anyone who enjoys a
challenge and would be kind enough to help me troubleshoot this, I'd be
incredibly grateful.

Thanks,
Neal

 

[SaltPeter]

This is truly perplexing. I have a large number of 32x32 icons for a
program I'm developing on a Win2K (SP4) machine. I cannot tell what I might
have done that would cause Windows Explorer (thumbnail view) to display the
icons that should display in 256 colors in only 16 colors. They look like
garbage now. As far as I can tell, no applications other than Windows
Explorer and Visual Basic are affected. When I pull them up in IconShop,
they display correctly. Other images opened in LView Pro display correctly.
That rules out a lot of things like hardware and some palette issues, but
I'm stumped as to where to turn next. I had recently installed an image
viewer component, so I uninstalled that and rebooted -- no dice.

I'm not quite sure at this point what details are relevant to provide, so I
need someone to ask me the right questions. If anyone who enjoys a
challenge and would be kind enough to help me troubleshoot this, I'd be
incredibly grateful.

Thanks,
Neal

If you consult the htt template and acompanying javascript thats responsible
for displaying a stepped down resolution of the icon, you'll understand why
the thumbnail is now in 16 colours. Consult your desktop.ini file (hidden)
in a pictures folder on your system.

You'll see something like:
WebViewTemplate.NT5=%WebDir%\ImgView.htt

 

[Neal Helman]

The problem appears to have been caused by a bug in Netmeeting when it
wasn't shut down properly. Someone suggested I start it, shut it down
properly, and restart the system. That seems to have worked. I'm going to
look into the desktop.ini and the corresponding template SaltPeter mentions,
too.

Thanks!
Neal