find icon for .exe

Question

I have the path name to a .exe file.

How do I find the path to the icon that windows would use if this file were dropped on the desktop? (I want to display this icon in my own program.)

I need to be able to find the icon via my C# program at runtime.

Using C# in Visual Studio 2008.

Answer 1

If found this code online a while ago to do that:

class Win32
{
    public const uint SHGFI_ICON = 0x100;
    public const uint SHGFI_LARGEICON = 0x0; // 'Large icon
    public const uint SHGFI_SMALLICON = 0x1; // 'Small icon

    [DllImport("shell32.dll")]
    public static extern IntPtr SHGetFileInfo(string pszPath, uint dwFileAttributes, ref SHFILEINFO psfi, uint cbSizeFileInfo, uint uFlags);

    public static Bitmap GetFileIcon(string fName)
    {
        IntPtr hImgSmall; //the handle to the system image list
        SHFILEINFO shinfo = new SHFILEINFO();
        hImgSmall = Win32.SHGetFileInfo(fName, 0, ref shinfo, (uint)Marshal.SizeOf(shinfo), Win32.SHGFI_ICON | Win32.SHGFI_SMALLICON);
        return Icon.FromHandle(shinfo.hIcon).ToBitmap();
    }
}


[StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential)]
public struct SHFILEINFO
{
    public IntPtr hIcon;
    public IntPtr iIcon;
    public uint dwAttributes;
    [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.ByValTStr, SizeConst = 260)]
    public string szDisplayName;
    [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.ByValTStr, SizeConst = 80)]
    public string szTypeName;
};

you also need

using System.Drawing;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

to reference all the appropriate classes

Answer 2

The default icon would be the one embedded in the exe at index 0.

Look at: Project properties > application tab > Icon.

Answer 3

This CodeProject article seems to do the job pretty well. It provides an IconExtractor class that encapsulates all the Win32 API stuff for you into a nice managed interface.

You can use it as such:

using TKageyu.Utils;

...

using (IconExtractor ie = new IconExtractor(@"D:\sample.exe")) 
{
    Icon icon0 = ie.GetIcon(0);
    Icon icon1 = ie.GetIcon(1);

    ...

    Icon[] splitIcons = IconExtractor.SplitIcon(icon0);

    ...
}