Finding Default App Icons With Visual Basic - The Registry

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Firstly, we need to convert the filename into just a file extension. That is, remove everything before the ".":

TempFileName = Right(FileName, Len(FileName) - InStrRev(FileName, ".") + 1)

Now we take a look at the registry and see if it has any record of this file type (it is, of course, possible that it doesn't):

lngError = RegOpenKey(HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, TempFileName, lngRegKeyHandle)
If lngError Then GoTo No_Icon 'we do not even have a valid extension so lets NOT try to find an icon!
lngStringLength = 260
'Make space for the incoming string
strProgramName = Space$(260)
'Get the key value:
lngError = RegQueryValueEx(lngRegKeyHandle, vbNullString, 0, 0, strProgramName, lngStringLength)
If lngError Then
'if there's an error then BIG TROUBLE so lets use the normal "windows" icon
'the world may be about to end (or its just an error) but we'll clean up anyway
lngError = RegCloseKey(lngRegKeyHandle)
GoTo No_Icon
End If
'if this generates an error then we can't do anthing about it anyway
lngError = RegCloseKey(lngRegKeyHandle)
'Cut the name down to size
strProgramName = Left(strProgramName, lngStringLength - 1)

You will notice that even when I am not going to use it I still make "lngError" receive any errors. I have left this in because it's useful for debugging.

You will notice that if any errors occur in this code I use the line "GoTo No_Icon". This is because even if we can't get a default icon for this file type, we will still want to display something, i.e. the default windows icon:



Ok, now we have the key name of our second registry key (stored in the strProgramName variable). What we need to do now is get the location for the default icon. The value that we want is held inside the sub-key "DefaultIcon". So very similarly to the last piece of code, we need to get this value:

'Use the value of the last key in the name of the next one (strProgramName )
lngError = RegOpenKey(HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT, strProgramName & "\DefaultIcon", lngRegKeyHandle)
'there is no icon for this extension so lets NOT try to load what doesn't exist!
If lngError Then GoTo No_Icon
'The rest is just the same as before
lngStringLength = 260
strDefaultIcon = Space$(260)
lngError = RegQueryValueEx(lngRegKeyHandle, vbNullString, 0, 0, strDefaultIcon, lngStringLength)
If lngError Then
lngError = RegCloseKey(lngRegKeyHandle)
GoTo No_Icon
End If
lngError = RegCloseKey(lngRegKeyHandle)
strDefaultIcon = Trim$(Left(strDefaultIcon, lngStringLength - 1))

Drawing the Icon
So we now have the location of the default icon. There is just one problem with this: the icon may be stored in a .exe, .dll or .ico file. This is not as much of a problem as it may sound. But we just need to do one thing first. The default icon it stored in the form of: "C:\BlahBlah\Blah.ico, 42".

We need to split the number up from the location:

'Find the comma
intN = InStrRev(strDefaultIcon, ",")
'We MUST have an icon number and it will be after the ",": NO COMMA NO DEFAULT ICON
If intN < 1 Then GoTo No_Icon
'What number is after the comma
lngIconNumber = Trim$(Right(strDefaultIcon, Len(strDefaultIcon) - intN))
'We only want whatever is before the comma in the file name
strDefaultIcon = Trim$(Left(strDefaultIcon, intN - 1))

So now we just need to draw the icon. This is where we need the "Device Context" (hDC) of our picture box:

Draw_Icon:
'Extract the Icon
lngIcon = ExtractIcon(App.hInstance, strDefaultIcon, lngIconNumber)
'if 1 or 0 then after all that the Icon could not be retrieved
If lngIcon = 1 Or lngIcon = 0 Then GoTo No_Icon
lngError = DrawIcon(Picture_hDC, 0, 0, lngIcon) 'Draw the icon in the box
'If that was unsucessful then we can't do anything about it now!
lngError = DestroyIcon(lngIcon)
'Again we can't correct any errors now
Exit Sub

The Contingency
In case we can't find the default icon, we need to display the Windows icon. Here's how:

No_Icon:
'No icon could be found so we use the normal windows icon
'This icon is held in shell32.dll in the system directory, Icon 0
strDefaultIcon = Space(260)
lngStringLength = GetSystemDirectory(strDefaultIcon, 260)
strDefaultIcon = Left(strDefaultIcon, lngStringLength) & "SHELL32.DLL"
lngIconNumber = 0
GoTo Draw_Icon
End Sub

The Windows icon will be held in the file "SHELL32.DLL", which is in the Windows system folder. So, we get the system directory and use that (along with "SHELL32.DLL") for the filename and then jump back to the "Draw_Icon" portion of code.

At this point I am just going to add an extra piece of code that will handle EXE's. This is because EXE's have no default icon but it's probably not best to just show the windows icon. So let's use the icon that Windows normally uses for EXE's:



Add this near the begging of your code, under "TempFileName = Right..." and above "lngError = RegOpenKey..."

If LCase(TempFileName) = ".exe" Then
strDefaultIcon = Space(260)
lngStringLength = GetSystemDirectory(strDefaultIcon, 260)
strDefaultIcon = Left(strDefaultIcon, lngStringLength) & "SHELL32.DLL"
lngIconNumber = 2
GoTo Draw_Icon
End If

This code is the same code used for getting the Windows icon except that we now want icon 2 instead of 0.

Next: The Complete Code >>
 

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