[2005] Problems with shortcut icon

[szlamany]

I created an app - happens to be a pocket pc app - but I'm guessing this is a general .Net question.

At any rate - I created a setup/install for it in VS. Even put a shortcut in the Program files folder on the PPC.

That shortcut showed up as the standard vanilla "app-like window" icon.

So I found an ICON from another program I had - added it to the project. Recreated the setup - everything seemed fine - now the shortcut had the ICON.

Here's the problem - I decided to change the icon slightly. Edited the .ICO with VS - there are 4 images in the .ICO. I changed all 4 of them.

But regardless of what I do I cannot get the shortcut when installed to look like the new image - it retains the old image before the edit of the .ICO. I've remade everything - removed the ICON from the project properties - re-added it. I cannot seem to get the picture to change.

Anyone ever have an issue like this?

[jmcilhinney]

I would think that you'd have to rebuild the assembly containing the icon, then go into your Setup project and reset the icon for the shortcut. If you've done both of those then I can't see why it wouldn't work, but there's always gremlins. Maybe try to just remove all references to the icon forst and get your shortcut back to displaying the default icon, then see if you can set it to the new one.

[szlamany]

What do you mean by "assembly" - the .ICO was simply added the the project properties.

I have re-built the heck out of that project and solution.

But I must say I am a bit confused about this whole DEBUG and RELEASE world that .Net has.

Can you give me a little background on what these are and how the BIN and DEBUG folders all work?

[jmcilhinney]

All your source files are stored in the project's root folder. .NET provides you with the ability to create multiple build configurations with different properties for each. The Debug and Release configurations are created by default, but you can create more if you want.

Those configurations are not specifically limited to be used while debugging and when releasing, but their properties are set such that each is optimised for those situations. For instance, the DEBUG constant is declared in the Debug configuration and not in the Release, allowing you to conditionally compile different code in each. Also, the Release configuration is optimised to exclude debugging information in the assembly, thus make it faster and smaller.

Each configuration can have a different output folder. For Debug this is the bin\Debug folder and for Release it is the bin\Debug folder, both under your project folder. This allows you to keep them separate. When you run your project in the debugger it will utilise the output in the bin\Debug folder. When you deploy your app you should use the output in the Release folder.

Note that another difference is the Setup projects are not built by default in the Debug configuration. Normally you would never want to install a Debug version so an installer is not required for that version. If I add test projects to my solution I usually exclude them from being built in the Release configuration, because they are only for testing purposes while debugging.

[szlamany]

...but there's always gremlins. Maybe try to just remove all references to the icon forst and get your shortcut back to displaying the default icon, then see if you can set it to the new one.

That's exactly the gremlin I found at the root of the problem.

I removed the .ICO from project prop's and also removed the shortcut from the install file system list - rebuilt everything - project/solution/setup project/setup solution

Launched that SETUP to the PPC and the ICON was back to the default "window-app" icon.

Went back and changed the name of the .ICO (since I edited the image - I figured I would change the name now). Added the .ICO back to proj prop's and rebuilt the SHORTCUT in the file system setup.

Re-built everything again - and now the ICON image appears properly.

Thanks!