The 411 on Icons

I've been reading up on icon usage for VB6, and I'm rather confused on what I need to do and what I can do for my application's icons. Can someone give me the 411 on what I need to do for the best looking icons I can draw v. what VB6 will accept?

It seems that 16x16 @ 256 colors is the minimal--no alpha, etc. Windows XP can support upwards of 48x48 w/ true colors, but you can't assign such icons in VB6. Links, threads, commentary welcomed. There is also a project on VB Accelerator that seems to work well, but I don't understand why it is necessary v. VB6 designed purpose when it comes to icons.

You can use any Windows Icon format as long as it doesn't go beyond True Colors (as you said no alphas, no XP).
Although True colors is the max color depth that VB allows, you may only use upto 256 colors when it comes to resource files.

With the help of some third party you might be able to use Alpha blended or XP icons but it may not work on every system so from my point of view it's just waste of time.

as RB says, it might be a little too much effort, but you may want to read the following vbAccelerator articles (along with a host of others that are there):

Providing a proper VB Application Icon, Including Large Icons and 32-Bit Alpha Images
Displaying Alpha (32bit) Icons with ImageLists