Windows 7 Taskbar Large Icons

[ThinkG]

I'm having trouble getting the higher resolution icons to display in the taskbar for built applications.  The low resolution icon displays at the large size.  I have defined multiple icons with the icon editor but Windows is not choosing the higher resolution icon.  Is there a way to force Windows to use the higher resolution icon for display in the taskbar?  Thanks.

OS:  Windows Server 2008 R2

Chris White

ThinkG Consulting LLC

[Hueter]

In Windows 7 you can make the icons on the task bar HUGE. can you show us a scrreen shot of what you are expecting vs what you are seeing so we can get a better idea of the problem?

[ThinkG]

Attached is a screenshot of the taskbar.  Several LabVIEW executables are running and all have the simple grey icons.  The executables "Index" and "Supervisor Server" both display the higher resolution icons.  The other icons display the lower resolution icons.  All executables have the following icons defined:  32x32 (16 colors), 16x16 (16 colors), 32x32 (2 colors), 16x16 (2 colors).  Some executables display the 32x32 icons but others display the 16x16 icons.  There is no apparrent difference in the icon files.

I tried creating a new icon file and even a new build specification with no success.  I created a new icon file with 32x32, 16x16, 48x48, 256x256 all at 32-bit colors but still the 16x16 displays.  When I remove the 16x16 icon then the higher resolution icon displays but it appears to have had its resolution decreased to 16x16 and looks worse.

[ssk]

Did anyone ever get to the bottom of this? I am experiencing the same thing on Windoes 7. My custom application icon (on the Task Bar), uses a scaled up version of the 16x16 icon and looks awful!

[ssk]

Realised what I was doing wrong. I had my default icon set to 16x16 in the build description. Changing it to a larger version cured the fuzzy icon!

[Edjsch]

Hi,

I have the same (or similar) problem: When I launch my exe, the correct 32x32 icon appears on the taskbar MOMENTARILY, then it switches to an upscaled 16x16 icon (this assumes that the taskbar properties doesn't have the "Use small icons" check box checked, in which case it uses the 16x16 icon as it should). Look carefully. Do (did) you see that?

This happens regardless if I select the 32x32 icon in Build Specifications --> Properties --> Icon and click the Build button or not. (And it always goes back to the 16x16 icon, the first in the list, even if I've previously saved the project with the 32x32 icon selected.)

Where/how do you set the "default icon" in the "build description"?

Thanks,

Ed

[blawson]

I played around with the LabVIEW.exe icon over in http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/How-To-Setup-your-LV-Icons-so-you-can-tell-versions-apart and it looks like built executables are similar.

In LV2009, no matter how the application's icon is set up, labview will pass the 16x16 icon to windows for the taskbar icon.  in LV2010, it seems to work correctly.

Ed: I think what you are seeing is that at first the OS is reading the icon from your exe, and then somehow the LV runtime is substituting the 16x16 icon later.

One thing that will work is to set the taskbar to "always combine". In this situation, Windows7 uses the icon associated with either the shortcut or the executable, depending on how you launched it.  To test this, create a shortcut to a LV-built app (or labview for that matter), then change the icon associated with the shortcut.  Now run the app from the shortcut and see what happens with each combination of taskbar options: small/large icons and "always combine" vs. "never combine".

edit: btw I don't think that selecting a particular one of the icon sizes in the Icon section of build properties does anything, I believe it is just there so you can browse the different images that make up the .ico file.

-B

[Edjsch]

Kudos to you, B! Setting the taskbar property to "Always combine, hide labels" did the trick. Now it keeps the correct 32x32 (I'm using 256 colors) icon without switching to the upscaled 16x16 icon. Of course, if I select "Use small icons" it correctly uses the 16x16 icon. (However, I'm sure there's no way to have my installer set this taskbar property, nor should there be. So when I deploy my application, the user is most likely going to not have that option selected as it is not the default, and therefore will see the pixelated up-scaled 16x16 icon. Such is life!)

The shortcut on the desktop is 48x48, which Windows apparently scaled-down my 64x64 icon as I didn't make a 48x48 icon, and it looks fine. (Also, in Windows Explorer the icons are correct in all views.) So Windows 7 seems to up-scale or down-scale icons with little rhyme or reason!

Thanks for confirming what I saw, that the selected icon size when doing the build did not have any effect. It's just for viewing the icon. However, I thought it should because when I changed my project file then showed the * indicating that a change was made and the file needs to be saved. Even though I saved it, then next time I re-opepned the project file, it still showed the 16x16 icon selected. So that isn't saved. I experimented and found that not changing anything but clicking OK in that dialog box, makes the project file think it was changed, which resulted in the * being displayed. This was a red herring.

Do you have any idea what ssk meant when he said, "I had my default icon set to 16x16 in the build description. Changing it to a larger version cured the fuzzy icon!"?

(FYI, I'm using LabView V. 8.5.)

Thanks,

Ed

[Edjsch]

UPDATE to my previous post: On another Win 7 PC where the taskbar option was already set to "Always combine, hide labels" it still uses the up-scaled 16x16 icon. We tried setting it back and forth with no luck.

Any thoughts? (Bill Gates - You need to keep an eye on your boys!)

Ed

[blawson]

I suspect that the problem is in the labview runtime engine, not win7. It also appears to be fixed in LV2010. Before vista, was it even possible to display icons larger than 16x16 on the taskbar?

You only get a 16x16 icon if you run the application from the .exe (i.e. by double clicking the file).  If you run it from a shortcut (start menu, desktop, etc.) then you get the shortcut's icon (which labview has no control over) whenever text labels aren't shown.