An Icon Question Please

[Dudley Henriques]

I have noticed that if I create a shortcut for a web site and put that
shortcut on the desktop from my favorites drop down, sometimes I get an icon
with a site logo and sometimes I get a simple Internet Explorer shortcut
logo.
Yesterday, I placed two icons from two different sites on the screen that
had the custom site logos. This morning when I booted the system, they were
IE icons again.....all but ONE, which stayed as it was yesterday with the
site logo showing.
Can someone explain this behavior for me, and perhaps tell me what has to be
in place for a specific system to be able to show these "created" icons as
opposed to getting only the IE shortcut icon when a shortcut is created?
Thanks much
Dudley

 

[Malke]

I have noticed that if I create a shortcut for a web site and put that
shortcut on the desktop from my favorites drop down, sometimes I get
an icon with a site logo and sometimes I get a simple Internet
Explorer shortcut logo.
Yesterday, I placed two icons from two different sites on the screen
that had the custom site logos. This morning when I booted the system,
they were IE icons again.....all but ONE, which stayed as it was
yesterday with the site logo showing.
Can someone explain this behavior for me, and perhaps tell me what has
to be in place for a specific system to be able to show these
"created" icons as opposed to getting only the IE shortcut icon when a
shortcut is created? Thanks much
Dudley

What you are seeing is called a "favicon" and it is a special icon put
on by the website. Here's an explanation that I got from a PCMagazine
article using the search term "define favicons" in Google:

"When you add a Web site to your Favorites list, Internet Explorer
checks to see whether the site has a favicon defined. If so, IE
displays the favicon next to the item in the Favorites menu. IE does
the same when you drag and drop a URL to create a shortcut. The icons,
however, are stored with your temporary Internet files. If you clear
the cache or if the icons are pushed out by newer files, you lose them.
To get around this problem, you can create a local copy of each icon
and associate it with the shortcut.

"The easiest way for a Web site to define a favicon is to include a file
named Favicon.ico in the root folder. For example, type
www.yahoo.com/favicon.ico in your browser's address bar and you'll see
that red Y! icon. Right-click on it and choose Save Picture As from the
drop-down menu to save a copy. Right-click on the shortcut and choose
Change icon to connect the local copy to the shortcut. You'll only have
to do this once for each shortcut. Keep in mind that some Web sites
define favicons using a different technique, one that doesn't lend
itself to downloading them manually."

If you'd like an easy way to save the favicons, here's a tweak from MVP
Kelly Theriot:

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm - FavOrg-restore and save
favourite icons (line 108, right column)

Malke

 

[Dudley Henriques]

Many thanks. This is exactly the answer I was seeking.
Dudley Henriques