Does Visual Studio 2010 let you edit icons?

Question

When I double click on a .ico file in Visual Studio 2010 (Professional), it opens what looks like an icon editor. It looks like it should be really easy to pick a color from the left and edit pixels.

But my mouse is a magnifying glass icon. Left click, right click, all they do is toggle zoom on the icon. I can't figure out how to do anything useful.

Am I missing something obvious? Is this icon view as useless as it seems?

Answer 1

You can't directly edit 32-bit color icons but you can convert them manually to 24-bit :

Right click > Add new icon 

Open your Icon1.ico file.

Right click > New Image Type or press Ins to open the New Icon Image Type dialog.

Select the format you want, say 96x96, 24 bit or add any custom size and color depth.

Then copy/paste from your 32-bit icon file and save.

Et voilà ! You can now edit your 24-bit color icon.

Answer 2

Doh! I needed to enable View -> Toolbars -> Image Editor.

Thanks to @detale.