How to add 32-bit icons

[stoo23]

Gee, I think I'd be wanting to 'ditch' Windows 8.1 and move to Windows 10.
You may find it all just works better 

[NoCforMe]

Does that unwanted behavior survive a reboot?

[TimoVJL]

This link give some details:
deleting the IconCache.db file

[jj2007]

Try converting the *.ico to *.png

I can't test it right now.

[Professor]

Gee, I think I'd be wanting to 'ditch' Windows 8.1 and move to Windows 10.
You may find it all just works better 

You could be right. That said, I'm not always convinced by the relentless drive forwards. Continuously adding complexity doesn't guarantee reduced problems!

[stoo23]

I only suggest it as had a good old friend that had been having endless weird issues with her 8.1 laptop.
Once upgraded to 10,.. she had no further problems.

Continuously adding complexity doesn't guarantee reduced problems!

Understood but you ARE virtually there anyway,.. 8.1 is just a rather Badly formed 10 

I honestly Don't think you would be wishing you didn't upgrade after doing so 

[jj2007]

8.1 is just a rather Badly formed 10

I jumped from 7 to 10 and confirm that Win10 is running rather smoothly. Hutch, btw, also liked Win10. But I will continue to ignore the invitation to install Win11 on this machine. That one must mature a couple of years

[Professor]

Try converting the *.ico to *.png

I'm loving the idea that Windows has moved on from the dated .ico format and is now embracing the far more versatile .png format. I immediately tried this, only to get the following compilation error:
JPGExtra3.rc (4): error RC2175 : resource file JPGExtra_48x48_v2_32bit.png is not in 3.00 format

Microsoft's help pages aren't particularly helpful:
The specified resource used a format earlier than version 3.00. The resource file must be converted or recreated using the format for version 3.00 or later.

I'll keep experimenting...

[jj2007]

See this SOF post. The second answer involves Gdi+, maybe that's a way to do it. I don't have time to test it right now, sorry...

[stoo23]

I jumped from 7 to 10 and confirm that Win10 is running rather smoothly

Yeah, so did I on the laptop, it was well configured i7 8 gig ram etc and the update process went very smoothly and the machine has been faultless since the upgrade !!

I like Win 7 but also am completely happy with the Win 10 installations I have 

[Professor]

See this SOF post. The second answer involves Gdi+, maybe that's a way to do it. I don't have time to test it right now, sorry...

Interesting – thanks! I wasn't aware of the 32-bit "premultiplied alpha" bitmap format.

[Professor]

Thanks also to various folks for their advice on Win-10. About a year ago I upgraded my partner's computer to Win-10 (I've been a PC specialist since the 1990s) and it had been mostly smooth sailing ever since. Her bluetooth-enabled hearing aids now get intermittent audio, so we reverted to good-old-fashioned headphones! (*sigh*)