correct icon image order

[miko]

i'm posting here (usually i inhabit the 9X forum) cause i though you lot would know the answer to this question, being, as you are, concerned with icons a lot -

whats the correct image order in a windows (multi image) icon ?

(it's for 98se but i assume its the same 'down the line so to speak)

i'm thinking -

48x48x4bit, 32x32x4bit, 16x16x4bit - 48x48x8bit, 32x32x8bit, 16x16x8bit - 48x48x24bit, 32x32x24bit, 16x16x24Bit going on to 48x48x32bit, 32x32x32bit, 16x16x32bit in XP.

is that correct ?

(i've left 24x24 size icons out in this example)

its just that some apps i've been using seem to save things differently (like all the 16x16s first then the 32x32s and so on . . . ) if i know the correct order i can correct my existing home made icons with @icon sushi

many thanks any one who responds

miko.

[Scubar]

when looking in an icon editor such as Axialis it should be

32bit icons ranging from 48-16

256 colour icons ranging from 48-16

16 color icons ranging from 48-16

eg

48x48

32x32         32bit icons

24x24

16x16

48x48

32x32         256 colour icons

24x24

16x16

48x48

32x32         16 colour icons

24x24

16x16

Edited December 5, 2005 by ScubaSteve

[miko]

thanks, for the reply

if thats correct, some of my free editors are getting it right, and it saves me some work.

i may dowload that app to check out the output as there were some posts in the product forum (i was Googling) that go into the fact it outputs the correct image order.

can't use it long term though as i have no means to pay for it over the net.

still, i can analyze the output in the short term

thanks again.

Edited December 5, 2005 by miko

[Herecomes]

The MSDN Library says differently. You have to scroll way down on this page:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default..../winxpintro.asp

"Note that the order of these images in the icon format does matter. If the order is wrong, the icons will cause older version of Windows to function poorly when extracting the icons. This poor performance manifests itself in memory corruption and improper rendering."

According to that page, the correct icon order is descending size, ascending resolution. My understanding of that logic was that you need to put high-res icons at the end so they're as far away as possible from where a system with unsophisticated icon extraction and rendering would look.

I would like an answer to this myself.