How To Create an Icon for Visual Studio with just MSPaint and Visual Studio
Creating an icon in MSPaint works just fine. Here's how you should proceed to get it to work.
In Visual Studio
Open
Resources.resx
from Solution Explorer (it's in the Properties folder)Choose
Icons
from DropDown Menu on the left [Ctrl+3]Choose
Add New Icon
from the DropDown MenuAdd Resource
Enter a name for the Icon Resource file
Right click on all the icons in the left panel - one at a time - and choose
Delete Image Type
(The last icon cannot be deleted - Leave it for now)
In MSPaint or an image program of your choise (I prefer Microsoft Paint 3D)
Create/Open the image that you would like to use (It could be a screenshot of your program)
Resize the image to 256x256 pixels
Select the full image [Ctrl+A] and then copy the image [Ctrl+C]
In Visual Studio
Right click in the left panel (the icon panel) and choose
New Image Type...
[Ins]Choose Target Image Type
256x256, 24 bit
(Select the New Target Type and) Paste [Ctrl+V] the image you copied from your image program
In your image program and in Visual Studio
Repeat the above Image Copy (image program) and Target Paste (Visual Studio) process for the 24 bit icon size's 128x128, 64x64, 32x32 and 16x16 (and/or the ones you like to support)
Don't forget to delete the last icon you couldn't delete before
In Visual Studio
Save the icon file (.ico) (by closing its tab or using [Ctrl+S])
Add the icon to your forms
Right click your project file in the Solution Explorer and choose
Properties
(You'll also find it in the Visual Studio MenuDebug -> "Your Project Name" Properties...
)Choose the
Application
sectionUnder
Resources
-Icon and manifest
browse to and select the icon file you just created.
All set...
(Tested with Visual Studio 2017 & Visual Studio Enterprise 2019)
In this day and age, it's way easier and faster to just use https://icoconvert.com/
- Upload your image file (PNG, GIF, JPG, etc.)
- Select
ICO for Windows 7, Windows 8, Vista and XP
- Download the ICO file
The ICO file will contain various resolutions of your original image.