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#1
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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 |
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#2
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Internet shortcut icons
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 |
#3
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Internet shortcut icons
.. . .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. |
#4
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Internet shortcut icons
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 |
#5
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Internet shortcut icons
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#6
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Internet shortcut icons
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 |
#7
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Internet shortcut icons
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. |
#8
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Internet shortcut icons
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. |
#9
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Internet shortcut icons
.. . .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 |
#10
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Internet shortcut icons
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 |
#11
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Internet shortcut icons
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. |
#12
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Internet shortcut icons
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. |
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