IconPackager is a program that allows users to change all (or nearly all) the icons in Windows by applying "packages" of icons.  Way back long ago, it was the very first program designed to do this on Windows. 

Over the years, the demands of icon artists have grown.  When IconPackager was first released in early 1999, icons came in two basic sizes -- 32x32 with 16 colors and 16x16 with 16 colors.  With the release of Windows Vista, icons support 256x256 true color, alpha blended icons down to 16x16 and everything in between.  Consider how large 256x256 is -- that's about the resolution of a DOS game 10 years ago.

IconPackager has continued to evolve.  The IconPackager format remains the defacto standard for distributing sets of icons to be used to change all the icons at once on a Windows system.  With IconPackager 3.2, Windows Vista's new icon features gain explicit support.

Giving Windows Vista a new iconic look

Windows Vista has lots of icons. And many of those icons are quickly seen by users.  For instance, the User Folder is a new folder in Windows Vista that users are likely to see.

User Folder in Windows Vista

In Windows XP, users noticed desktop icons and the Start menu icons.  In Windows Vista, the Start menu has fewer icons but there are a lot more icons elsewhere such as the new user folder.

The Challenges of Windows Vista

Of all the OSes IconPackager has supported, Windows Vista has proven the hardest to tame so far.  That's because Microsoft seemingly went out of their way to make Vista less friendly to icon changing.  Besides there being more icons to change, Windows Vista actually only uses 4 sizes of icons -- 256x256 (which is a new size), 48x48, 32x32, and 16x16.  When sizing icons, if a 256x256 icon isn't  available, it will use the 48x48 icon -- even if a 128x128 icon is available.

Moreover, Windows Vista will not scale up icons. It only scales down.  That means that if a 256x256 icon isn't available and you want to have your icons be say 128x128 in size, too bad, it'll just use the 48x48 and keep it in a tile:

Classic icon packages like Copperdeck won't size above 48x48 even though larger sized icons exist within the icon resource

For IconPackager 3.2, Stardock went ahead and refreshed the new included icon packages to support 256x256 (and unfortunately, Stardock IconDeveloper doesn't yet support Vista 256x256 icons).  But we are hoping to add support to on-the fly up-conversion so that icons which have at least 128x128 icons in them will be scaled to 256x256. A 2 to 1 ratio results in almost no difference in quality and would allow most of the popular icon packages to be used on Windows Vista without needing to be updated.

Folders on Windows Vista

The other challenge on Windows Vista are folder icons.  Historically, icon artists would simply create a generic folder and IconPackager would then replace the Windows default folder icon with the one created by the icon artist.

But on Windows Vista, it's a whole new world. Windows Vista has "live" folder icons. The folders on Vista show little thumbnails of what's inside. Cool eh?

Oh isn't that cool? The folder opens up and shows what's inside! Great right? Right???

But how do you change that? Well, it turns out you can if you look at that folder icon as two icons -- the foreground and the background. Of course, under the covers, it's a lot more complicated than that of course but to make folder icon changing accessible to icon authors, we were able to break it down into two images for the folder that the icon artist would have to make.

Changing the folder icons on Windows Vista involves a little more work -- the default folder icon is broken into two images.

An updated look

Since Windows Vista looks prettier, we figured it was time to update the look of IconPackager.  As much as we know people enjoyed the Windows NT 4.0 look and feel of IconPackager, we decided to update it with a new look.

Not just good for Windows Vista users

Windows XP users gain from the various tweaks we've made. They're relatively minor (at this stage, we have changing icons on Windows XP pretty nailed down).  But still, any change at this stage on XP is still good.

And for Windows Vista users, as good as the Windows Vista icons look, now you can personalize them to your own preference.

There are thousands of icon packages available and now Windows Vista users have options

Vitals

IconPackager is a free download from Stardock.  You can purchase it on its own or purchase it as part of Object Desktop which includes not just IconPackager but WindowBlinds, DesktopX, RightClick, Theme Manager, etc.

Visit: IconPackager home page