How to perform “shell” icon embedding in Visual Studio 2010?

Question

As far as I can tell, there have been (at least?) three types of icon embedding. There\'s the original style used by shell32.dll and friends, .NET\'s embedding, and the new

Answer 1

I never heard the term "icon embedding" before. If you are talking about the icon that's visible for a EXE or DLL in Explorer or a desktop shortcut: that's done the same way for any Windows program. Both WF and WPF give the assembly an unmanaged resource with the selected icon using the /win32res compile option. You can see it in Visual Studio with File + Open + File, select the EXE or DLL.

To create a .res file, first create a .rc file. You can create one with the C++ IDE. Right-click the solution, Add New Project, Visual C++, Win32, Win32 Console Application. Right-click the Resource Files folder, Add + Resource, select Icon, Import. select your file. Repeat as needed. After you build, you'll get a .res file in the project's Debug build directory.

Back to your C# project, Project + Properties, Application tab. Select the Resource File option and navigate to the .res file.