Extra large icons too small

I have noticed some Explorer icons failing to display larger than a specific size even in Extra Large Icons view.

This is often because the .ico file does NOT contain larger sized versions of the icon.

However I recently discovered that even when a plethora of sizes, including 256x256 and 128x128 exist within the .ico file, Explorer still fails to display the larger icon, instead using the smallest icon in the .ico file.

Since I often programmatically create my icons I decided to use the same sizes that match an icon that worked, namely; 256, 64, 48, 40, 32, 24, 20 and 16. This immediately solved the issue with Extra Large Icons view.

The only missing icon sizes that the previous set (the set that didn't work) did NOT contain were 40 and 20.

Seems unlikely that those sizes are relevant, but perhaps Explorer notices the non-standard content and defaults to using the smallest size?!?

You can read the contents of an .ico file with various icon related software, many for free. Finding a free tool that will allow you to add the extra icons might be tricky however.

This isn't an issue of scale as in changing Windows scaling, it's an issue of relative scale.

See the Explorer image below:

dalchina said:

Are those..
- system icons?
- associated with particular programs?
- something else?

- Just curious.. thanks.

The examples I gave in the image are just icons that I'd downloaded that just happen to be lying around on my drive. I used those because they had varying sizes within, to demonstrate the issue, i.e. non-standard sizes results in an inability to use the Extra Large Icons view properly.

However the icons I was referring to in my post are those I've created by hand in photoshop and converted to .ico files using software I've written. It wasn't until it dawned on me what the problem might be that I decided to test the theory. As soon as I write the files with the "standard" sizes within, the problem is resolved.

The point about my post was really to have a record of the solution. I found quite a few sites with people pondering as to why this was happening and asking for a solution. I just happened to have an account with this site so I thought I'd let people know how to solve it. I couldn't be arsed to create accounts on all the sites I found people moaning about the problem.