Internet shortcut icons

When I create an internet shortcut (on the desk top) its initial icon is
the browser; in my case, Firefox. Usually the icon on the desktop morphs
into the icon I see on the browser tab for the target of the shortcut.
This happens automagically. Is there some way to force this behavior or
must I wait some undefined amount of time for it to just happen?
--
Jeff Barnett

Jeff Barnett wrote on 10/04/2015 12:56 PM:
When I create an internet shortcut (on the desk top) its initial icon is
the browser; in my case, Firefox. Usually the icon on the desktop morphs
into the icon I see on the browser tab for the target of the shortcut.
This happens automagically. Is there some way to force this behavior or
must I wait some undefined amount of time for it to just happen?

Some web sites house their site's icon on the web site, others don't.


--
...winston
msft mvp windows experience

.. . .winston wrote on 10/4/2015 1:38 PM:
Jeff Barnett wrote on 10/04/2015 12:56 PM:
When I create an internet shortcut (on the desk top) its initial icon is
the browser; in my case, Firefox. Usually the icon on the desktop morphs
into the icon I see on the browser tab for the target of the shortcut.
This happens automagically. Is there some way to force this behavior or
must I wait some undefined amount of time for it to just happen?

Some web sites house their site's icon on the web site, others don't.


I make my own with Greenfish Icon Editor. Google Images is great for finding the same icon or something better.

Big Al wrote on 10/4/2015 1:03 PM:
. . .winston wrote on 10/4/2015 1:38 PM:
Jeff Barnett wrote on 10/04/2015 12:56 PM:
When I create an internet shortcut (on the desk top) its initial icon is
the browser; in my case, Firefox. Usually the icon on the desktop morphs
into the icon I see on the browser tab for the target of the shortcut.
This happens automagically. Is there some way to force this behavior or
must I wait some undefined amount of time for it to just happen?

Some web sites house their site's icon on the web site, others don't.


I make my own with Greenfish Icon Editor. Google Images is great for
finding the same icon or something better.


Fellows, thanks for the info. I am mostly curios how and when Windows
does its magic.
--
Jeff Barnett

In article , (Jeff Barnett) wrote:

Fellows, thanks for the info. I am mostly curios how and when
Windows does its magic.

Go to Tools Internet Options General tab, click 'Settings' under Browsing
History and then 'View Files' on the next dialog. Click the 'Type' header in the
list of Temporary Files and then scroll down to the section with .ico files in it.
All the 'favicon.ico' files are supplied by the web sites and they're the ones
which display on the desktop links. If a web site doesn't have an icon file you'll
see the default IE icon on the shortcut.

Regards
John ) Remove the obvious to reply...

Jeff Barnett wrote on 10/04/2015 5:53 PM:
Big Al wrote on 10/4/2015 1:03 PM:
. . .winston wrote on 10/4/2015 1:38 PM:
Jeff Barnett wrote on 10/04/2015 12:56 PM:
When I create an internet shortcut (on the desk top) its initial
icon is
the browser; in my case, Firefox. Usually the icon on the desktop
morphs
into the icon I see on the browser tab for the target of the shortcut.
This happens automagically. Is there some way to force this behavior or
must I wait some undefined amount of time for it to just happen?

Some web sites house their site's icon on the web site, others don't.


I make my own with Greenfish Icon Editor. Google Images is great for
finding the same icon or something better.


Fellows, thanks for the info. I am mostly curios how and when Windows
does its magic.

Sorry, I thought my answer was implicit.

If the web site doesn't house the icon file, then Windows uses its own
default icon. If the web site icon is available (on the web site),
Windows can use it. No magic is involved - only what's available for
Windows to use.


--
...winston
msft mvp windows experience

On 04/10/15 17:56, Jeff Barnett wrote:
When I create an internet shortcut (on the desk top) its initial icon is
the browser; in my case, Firefox. Usually the icon on the desktop morphs
into the icon I see on the browser tab for the target of the shortcut.
This happens automagically. Is there some way to force this behavior or
must I wait some undefined amount of time for it to just happen?

Has the website in question got its own favicon? If so then the link
will use it as the icon you are talking about. Otherwise, OS uses its
own default icon for web links.

Jeff Barnett wrote:

When I create an internet shortcut (on the desk top) its initial icon is
the browser; in my case, Firefox. Usually the icon on the desktop morphs
into the icon I see on the browser tab for the target of the shortcut.
This happens automagically. Is there some way to force this behavior or
must I wait some undefined amount of time for it to just happen?

Maybe you are running afoul of the change in what object gets created on
the desktop when dragging a URL from the address bar of a web browser.
Previously doing so would create a .url shortcut on the desktop. That
was the type with which you were familiar. Later Microsoft introduced
pinning of a web site to the desktop as a shortcut (showed up in IE9 but
I'm not sure it is only an IE thing). Dragged URLs from a web browser's
address bar to the desktop created .website shortcuts aka pinned
Internet shortcuts instead of the traditional .url shortcuts.

See:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...ut-create.html
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/cbowen/archi...shortcuts.aspx
https://zoomicon.wordpress.com/2011/...net-shortcuts/

I wanted to use the old .url shortcuts, not the fancy schmancy pinned
shortcuts, so I disabled that "feature". I grew tired of having to
remember to press the Shift key when dragging a URL so a .url shortcut
got created instead of a .website shortcut. I don't know if Firefox can
even create a .website shortcut (aka pinned Internet shortcut).

Disable pinning
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...pin-sites.html

The favicon.dll file must reside in the folder for the home page of a
web site to have it retrieved to a local file copy in the TIF (temporary
Internet file) cache. If there is no favicon.dll file already in the
TIF cache to associate to a shortcut then a newly created shortcut gets
a default icon. Even if they later provide the favicon.dll file, the
shortcut does not get updated but, I believe, it may get refreshed if
you logoff and login. This might update the iconcache. If not, you
have to purge the iconcache and get it rebuilt. While you could try to
delete the iconcache.db file, the .bat file provided at the below site
might be easier:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...e-rebuild.html

I cannot recall if rebuilding the iconcache would solve your problem.
If I find the site provides a favicon.ico file on a later visit (it's in
the TIF cache) then I delete the old URL shortcut and create a new one
which should incorporate the web site's icon.

If you still cannot get the shortcut to show the site's icon, you can
change what icon is shown for a URL shortcut. Right-click on the URL
shortcut, select Properties, go to the Web Document tab, and click on
the Change Icon button. Pick whatever .ico file you want. You can also
pick any .exe or resource file (.dll) that includes icon resource
definitions within it. For example, shell32.dll, moricons.dll, or any
..exe or .dll or .ico file have icon resources from which you can pick an
icon. You might try searching on "website icon" to see if someone
saved or created an .ico file for that website.

If you visit a site and find there is a favicon.ico file in the TIF
cache, you could save the file and then change the URL shortcut's
properties to use that .ico to get an icon. That's only possible with a
..url shortcut. Pinned Internet shortcuts aka .website objects don't
have properties for you to edit.

A more techie way to change the shortcut is to open a command shell,
navigate to the folder where is the .url shortcut file (a text file but
specially handled by Windows Explorer so use that to try to edit the
text file), and you'll see something like:

[InternetShortcut]
URL=websiteURL
IDList=
HotKey=0
IconFile=C:\Users\yourWinprofile\AppData\Local\M ozilla\Firefox\Profiles\yourFFprofile\shortcutCa che\somehashvalue.ico
IconIndex=0

That is for a shortcut created by Firefox. That's why the icon resource
points into your Firefox profile. This points to a .ico file that was
saved on your disk. It could also point to an online resource. If you
don't have a network connection to the external resource than Windows
cannot display an icon it cannot find. If the IconFile var is missing
then there was no icon to save at the time the URL shortcut got created.
You could add the line and point at whatever .ico file you want;
however, editing the properties of the URL shortcut, Web Doc tab, and
changing the icon from there is much easier.

.. . .winston wrote on 10/4/2015 8:35 PM:
Jeff Barnett wrote on 10/04/2015 5:53 PM:
Big Al wrote on 10/4/2015 1:03 PM:
. . .winston wrote on 10/4/2015 1:38 PM:
Jeff Barnett wrote on 10/04/2015 12:56 PM:
When I create an internet shortcut (on the desk top) its initial
icon is
the browser; in my case, Firefox. Usually the icon on the desktop
morphs
into the icon I see on the browser tab for the target of the shortcut.
This happens automagically. Is there some way to force this
behavior or
must I wait some undefined amount of time for it to just happen?

Some web sites house their site's icon on the web site, others don't.


I make my own with Greenfish Icon Editor. Google Images is great for
finding the same icon or something better.


Fellows, thanks for the info. I am mostly curios how and when Windows
does its magic.

Sorry, I thought my answer was implicit.

If the web site doesn't house the icon file, then Windows uses its own
default icon. If the web site icon is available (on the web site),
Windows can use it. No magic is involved - only what's available for
Windows to use.

I was sure that if the sit didn't have it's own icon that icon wouldn't
be used, naturally. I was more interested in the case where the site
DOES have an icon and there is some arbitrary delay before it is used.
--
Jeff Barnett

Linux User wrote on 10/4/2015 9:25 PM:
On 04/10/15 17:56, Jeff Barnett wrote:
When I create an internet shortcut (on the desk top) its initial icon is
the browser; in my case, Firefox. Usually the icon on the desktop morphs
into the icon I see on the browser tab for the target of the shortcut.
This happens automagically. Is there some way to force this behavior or
must I wait some undefined amount of time for it to just happen?

Has the website in question got its own favicon? If so then the link
will use it as the icon you are talking about. Otherwise, OS uses its
own default icon for web links.

Of course it has one or I wouldn't expect it (the non-existing it) to be
used. Example: one shortcut to Amazon has an Amazon icon; another
doesn't but I just created it and I expect it to make up the Amazon icon
sometime in the future.
--
Jeff Barnett

On Sun, 4 Oct 2015 10:56:19 -0600, Jeff Barnett
wrote:

When I create an internet shortcut (on the desk top) its initial icon is
the browser; in my case, Firefox. Usually the icon on the desktop morphs
into the icon I see on the browser tab for the target of the shortcut.
This happens automagically. Is there some way to force this behavior or
must I wait some undefined amount of time for it to just happen?

My understanding is that it works like this:

You drag the shortcut to the desktop. Windows creates it with a
default icon but - if available - it has a pointer to the webicon (if
the webicon isn't downloaded yet, it will update the shortcut once it
is available).

At an unspecified interval, Windows will refresh its desktop.
Essentially, it reloads the icons for all the items on the desktop.
This time, it loads the webicon instead of the default browser icon.

The refresh of the desktop happens at a pre-programmed interval (I
/think/ its every five seconds but I have no trust in my memory or
that number) hardcoded into Explorer. It will also automatically
refresh the desktop if the content changes (e.g., if you add another
shortcut, drag a file onto the desktop or delete something). You can
also trigger it with a right-click/refresh (on some versions of
Windows) or just clicking on the desktop and pressing F5.

I don't know of any way (registry setting) to change the interval
between folder refreshes. Explorer uses the browser icon because that
creates the shortcut faster than having to wait to download and parse
the data to the webicon pointers (which it does invisibly in the
background). Depending on the website's html code, this can be fast or
slow, and it doesn't get the highest priority.

Big Al wrote:

I wonder if that cache is something that CCleaner cleans out. Usually caches can be cleared. Off topic but still an
interesting thing to test.

I have CCleaner 5.10.5373 (latest version). Under its Application tab
(when the Cleaner category is selected) is listed the Firefox cleanup
selections. By default, the ones selected a

Internet cache (*)
Internet history (*)
Cookies (*)
Download history (*)
Session (*)

(*) These are all redundant since I configured Firefox to flush all this
data up exiting Firefox.

For me at this moment, under the following folder:

C:\Users\me\AppData\Local\Mozilla\Firefox\Profil es\profile.default\shortcutCache

there are 28 .ico files. Loading and exiting Firefox does not flush
this folder. Running CCleaner with its default selections for Firefox
does not flush this folder. With all Firefox selections selected in
CCleaner except for "Compact databases" and after running CCleaner, this
folder was not flushed.

You would have to go into CCleaner's include options to add that folder
to have CCleaner flush out that folder. Of course, if you configure
CCleaner to flush that folder then every .url shortcut you created (by
dragging the URL to the desktop or into a folder) would no longer have
an .ico file to point at so you'd be stuck with with a generic icon for
the shortcut.

Since every site attempts to use a unique icon, this folder storing the
favicons can indicate to where you visited. It isn't flushed by
Firefox's cleanup options. It isn't flushed by CCleaner (unless you
specifically include that folder to flush its contents). However,
flushing that folder means every Firefox-generated .url shortcut will
lose its icon.