faint white squares around desktop icons

Because I often work at a greater distance from my monitor than do most
people, I use large icons on my Vista Business desktop. Since I went to the
large icons, there is a faint white square around each non-Windows icon. Only
the Documents, My Computer, and Trash icons do not have the squares. Each
side of the square measures about 1.5-inch (about 38mm). The squares are
transparent except for the faint white border, which indicates they may be
some kind of overlay. I want to get rid of them. How?

Mike F from TN;445316 Wrote:
> Because I often work at a greater distance from my monitor than do most
> people, I use large icons on my Vista Business desktop. Since I went to
> the
> large icons, there is a faint white square around each non-Windows
> icon. Only
> the Documents, My Computer, and Trash icons do not have the squares.
> Each
> side of the square measures about 1.5-inch (about 38mm). The squares
> are
> transparent except for the faint white border, which indicates they may
> be
> some kind of overlay. I want to get rid of them. How?

Hi Mike,

The icons on your desktop with the outline around them are caused by
them not having the proper icons for the larger size. They will only
show properly for the "Classic" or "Medium" size.

Here are a couple of options you can do:

1. Change the icon for the shortcut to another one that show properly.
This tutorial will show you how.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/88...on-change.html

2. You can try method two at this tutorial so you can have better
control on changing the icon size. Just gradually increase or decrease
the icon size until it shows properly.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/61...icon-size.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn


--
brink

*There are no dumb questions, just the people that do not ask them.*
_http://www.Vistax64.com (\"http://www.Vistax64.com\")_
*Please post feedback to help others.*

Mike F from TN wrote:
> Because I often work at a greater distance from my monitor than do most
> people, I use large icons on my Vista Business desktop. Since I went to the
> large icons, there is a faint white square around each non-Windows icon. Only
> the Documents, My Computer, and Trash icons do not have the squares. Each
> side of the square measures about 1.5-inch (about 38mm). The squares are
> transparent except for the faint white border, which indicates they may be
> some kind of overlay. I want to get rid of them. How?

Yes, I notice it here too. It looks like all icons have it that have
a shortcut overlay icon superimposed over them (that shortcut arrow in
the lower left corner is actually a separate icon, all transparent
except for the arrow, and it is displayed as a new layer on top of
another icon).

So it looks like that shortcut overlay is the culprit. Icons usually
contain several different images in different sizes and color depths
in a single icon file, and in this case the large size image will
probably have a thin non-transparent border around it, that the
smaller versions don't.

This means it won't be easy to fix, because that overlay isn't stored
as a separate icon file, but as a resource in shell32.dll.


There's one exception: web shortcuts don't have a border.
That probably means they're using a different overlay icon (stored
somewhere else, in an IE dll or so).

Shawn, thanks very much for this helpful info. I think I will try option 2.
Before I do though, I need to make sure this will work in a 32bit environment
because I noticed that your tutorials appear to be set up for Vista 64bit.

"brink" wrote:

>
> Mike F from TN;445316 Wrote:
> > Because I often work at a greater distance from my monitor than do most
> > people, I use large icons on my Vista Business desktop. Since I went to
> > the
> > large icons, there is a faint white square around each non-Windows
> > icon. Only
> > the Documents, My Computer, and Trash icons do not have the squares.
> > Each
> > side of the square measures about 1.5-inch (about 38mm). The squares
> > are
> > transparent except for the faint white border, which indicates they may
> > be
> > some kind of overlay. I want to get rid of them. How?
>
> Hi Mike,
>
> The icons on your desktop with the outline around them are caused by
> them not having the proper icons for the larger size. They will only
> show properly for the "Classic" or "Medium" size.
>
> Here are a couple of options you can do:
>
> 1. Change the icon for the shortcut to another one that show properly.
> This tutorial will show you how.
>
> http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/88...on-change.html
>
> 2. You can try method two at this tutorial so you can have better
> control on changing the icon size. Just gradually increase or decrease
> the icon size until it shows properly.
>
> http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/61...icon-size.html
>
> Hope this helps,
> Shawn
>
>
> --
> brink
>
> *There are no dumb questions, just the people that do not ask them.*
> _http://www.Vistax64.com (\"http://www.Vistax64.com\")_
> *Please post feedback to help others.*
>

Hi Lucvdv, thanks for the reply. Actually, I had already removed the arrows
using a program suggested by someone in this forum. Perhaps the frames are
left over from that operation, I don't know. Anyway, I am going to try to
reduce the size of my icons a little at a time until those frames go away
using suggestions from another reply. Hopefully the icons will still be large
enough for me to see. Mike

"Lucvdv" wrote:

> Mike F from TN wrote:
> > Because I often work at a greater distance from my monitor than do most
> > people, I use large icons on my Vista Business desktop. Since I went to the
> > large icons, there is a faint white square around each non-Windows icon. Only
> > the Documents, My Computer, and Trash icons do not have the squares. Each
> > side of the square measures about 1.5-inch (about 38mm). The squares are
> > transparent except for the faint white border, which indicates they may be
> > some kind of overlay. I want to get rid of them. How?
>
> Yes, I notice it here too. It looks like all icons have it that have
> a shortcut overlay icon superimposed over them (that shortcut arrow in
> the lower left corner is actually a separate icon, all transparent
> except for the arrow, and it is displayed as a new layer on top of
> another icon).
>
> So it looks like that shortcut overlay is the culprit. Icons usually
> contain several different images in different sizes and color depths
> in a single icon file, and in this case the large size image will
> probably have a thin non-transparent border around it, that the
> smaller versions don't.
>
> This means it won't be easy to fix, because that overlay isn't stored
> as a separate icon file, but as a resource in shell32.dll.
>
>
> There's one exception: web shortcuts don't have a border.
> That probably means they're using a different overlay icon (stored
> somewhere else, in an IE dll or so).
>

Mike F from TN;445811 Wrote:
> Shawn, thanks very much for this helpful info. I think I will try optio
> 2
> Before I do though, I need to make sure this will work in a 32bi
> environmen
> because I noticed that your tutorials appear to be set up for Vist
> 64bit
>
>

Your welcome Mike

Yes, it will work for both the 32 and 64 bit Vista. All of th
tutorials will unless they are otherwise noted

Shaw

--
brin

*There are no dumb questions, just the people that do not ask them.
_http://www.Vistax64.com (\"http://www.Vistax64.com\")
*Please post feedback to help others.*

What I did was use both methods. First I selected Medium icons from the View
Menu, then I did the ctrl/rightmouse/scroll wheel thing on the Trash bin and
increased the size until the icon had a white frame. The I repeated the
second method but this time rolled back one click on the wheel, and that did
it. It also took care of the other icons, so you only have to do it to one
icon. Thanks again. Mike

"brink" wrote:

>
> Mike F from TN;445811 Wrote:
> > Shawn, thanks very much for this helpful info. I think I will try option
> > 2.
> > Before I do though, I need to make sure this will work in a 32bit
> > environment
> > because I noticed that your tutorials appear to be set up for Vista
> > 64bit.
> >
> >
>
> Your welcome Mike,
>
> Yes, it will work for both the 32 and 64 bit Vista. All of the
> tutorials will unless they are otherwise noted.
>
> Shawn
>
>
> --
> brink
>
> *There are no dumb questions, just the people that do not ask them.*
> _http://www.Vistax64.com (\"http://www.Vistax64.com\")_
> *Please post feedback to help others.*
>

Mike F from TN;445916 Wrote:
> What I did was use both methods. First I selected Medium icons from the
> View
> Menu, then I did the ctrl/rightmouse/scroll wheel thing on the Trash
> bin and
> increased the size until the icon had a white frame. The I repeated the
> second method but this time rolled back one click on the wheel, and
> that did
> it. It also took care of the other icons, so you only have to do it to
> one
> icon. Thanks again. Mike
>
>

Mike,

Glad to hear you got them the way you wanted them.

Thank you for the feedback,
Shawn


--
brink

*There are no dumb questions, just the people that do not ask them.*
_http://www.Vistax64.com (\"http://www.Vistax64.com\")_
*Please post feedback to help others.*