After a much larger investigation, which I would like, I came to the conclusion (possibly erroneously) that BRCC32 has a problem creating resource files that have ICO images with different color depths.
To be specific, if you have icons in the ICO file that have both 8-bit 256-color and 24-bit images (alpha), then BRCC32 will create a RES file containing them, but as 8-bit, so and 24-bit images will be marked as 24 bits. The problem is that systems that want to display 24-bit images, that is, those that can have more than 256 colors, will select the first image that meets this requirement. In my case, at least it will be a “pseudo” 24-bit color icon 256. Thus, you get an icon with a lower resolution on the desktop than you should do.
Using the HeavenTools 'Resource Tuner', you can see that the “Group Icon” information may contain 24-bit descriptors for 8-bit images.
Two ways for me. Delete 256-color ico images, which results in only the “correct” 24-bit Alpha XP images appearing in the resulting RES file. The disadvantage is that you do not have 256 color icons if you need them. It is best to use GoRC.exe (resource compiler) from http://www.godevtool.com/#rc as an alternative to BRCC32. This handles the combination of 8 and 24 bit images correctly. As a result, windows can select the correct icon corresponding to the system screen resolution.
As a side issue, I also saw that BRCC32 does not seem to handle PNG compressed images (you get 15 Allocate failed error). He was looking for this error that I encountered with GoRC (via Jan Wichers blog).
Does anyone have similar experience confirming my findings, or am I lacking some key knowledge? My follow would be, is this still a problem in the D2009 / D2010 ??
Paul.
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