Corresponding icon for Windows 8 installer

Question

I am trying to figure out which icon I should (and allowed) to send with my installer. I would prefer not to use custom, as many applications (including some of them are owned by Microsoft, such as Office and Visual Studio) these days. I want the icon to be recognizable as "it installs a piece of software" and not "the graphic designer was a little too much fun."

So, I looked at the common icons in the latest versions of Windows, all of which, as a rule, are in the current version:

• the icon for .msi files is still on the current Windows 10 Technical Preview, the 15-year-old Office 2000 / Windows Installer 1.0. It maximizes at 32x32 and does not have an alpha channel. This means, for example, that it inconveniently scales when installed on the desktop.

  

• Windows XP has a new style. Many application installers still come with this today.

  

• Here is the Vista style. I rarely see this being used by third parties.

  

• And finally, Windows 8. The same: third-party users do not use it.

  

• Bonus: ClickOnce setup.exe boot files created in the latest versions of Visual Studio have an icon that is hard to describe and, oddly enough, nothing more than 32x32 is missing again.

  

In Windows 8, I find it most attractive. This may be too general, but that means “it runs something on your machine” without offering outdated technologies like floppy disks or optical disks (my application is distributed over the Internet).

However, given that I have never seen an application use this icon, I wonder if this is just a trend that people prefer to send their own icons (or, lazily, still use the extremely outdated version of MSI) or if Microsoft doesn't want to so that we use it. I could not find a license.

The closest recommendations I found are those that have not been updated with Vista (!) And are not included in the details about which standard icons to use, when and where. ( Standard article icons apply to only four icons. Four.)

So, where can I find recommendations and licenses for the installation icon that I allow and authorize to use?

Answer 1

According to this answer, these installation icons are system-wide. Therefore, you should not think about them. According to your system (XP, Vista, ...), they will have different icons, as you already indicated.

If you use the .exe file for installation, in addition to the MSI file, I suggest that you use your company icon or project icon for your .exe file.

Answer 2

This may be useful for a question about licenses . In the "Microsoft Icons" section, you will find " how to buy products for Microsoft developers. " This should answer where you get them from. About the badge, I would say that it is a matter of taste. My favorite clear Win 7 icon. This suggests that you are dealing with Windows materials, and this is a well-known symbol. As you said, the Win8 icon is pretty abstract, and it only tells you that you are going to install sth. on your computer, but not that. Win7 does this.

Answer 3

I'm not sure about others, but I can tell you that while your software is developed using Visual Studio, and you use it to "install the client application", then you can use the Windows XP icon. This icon was released under the Visual Studio 2010 Image Library , which is part of Visual Studio.

MSDN Documentation Status

Use restrictions As part of the visual language, use the following images (or any part of the images) as described below:

Readme.html file for category states

Use restrictions As part of the visual language, use the following images (or any part of the images) as described below:

[Usage] Description for the icon

Install client application

Note. If you use it, I would suggest using the copy provided in the Visual Studio Image Library, and not on the Internet.