Extract high resolution icon or thumbnail for file

Question

I\'m trying to get a high resolution icon or thumbnail in Windows given a full path to that file. Doesn\'t need to be a thumbnail — a good looking Icon will be grea

Answer 1

Have you tried ExtractIconEx()?

It has dedicated parameters to extract arrays of both small and large icons from executables, DLLs, or icon files. From there you can select the size best suited to your needs. The API call is available from Win2K onwards.

Answer 2

If you are targeting Vista and higher, you can get a 256x256 icon from the jumbo image list. If you need to target XP, you can at least use the extra large image list, which is 48x48 (slightly better than 32x32 large).

#include <commoncontrols.h>
#include <shellapi.h>

HICON GetHighResolutionIcon(LPTSTR pszPath)
{
    // Get the image list index of the icon
    SHFILEINFO sfi;
    if (!SHGetFileInfo(pszPath, 0, &sfi, sizeof(sfi), SHGFI_SYSICONINDEX)) return NULL;

    // Get the jumbo image list
    IImageList *piml;
    if (FAILED(SHGetImageList(SHIL_JUMBO, IID_PPV_ARGS(&piml))) return NULL;

    // Extract an icon
    HICON hico;
    piml->GetIcon(sfi.iIcon, ILD_TRANSPARENT, &hico);

    // Clean up
    piml->Release();

    // Return the icon
    return hico;
}