What are the exact dimensions for a Windows application icon

Question

There are different dimensions for taskbar(big icons, small), desktop, start menu, etc. What are all dimensions one needs for a Windows application? And is there a way to put them all into a single file?

I have already designed the icon in Photoshop.

Answer 1

Well, the desktop alone can use almost any standard (Joey named most, if not all, of them) size.

I find it works well to combine 16x16, 32x32, 48x48, and 256x256 (and maybe more sizes) into one .ico file. I use IcoFx, and it is super easy to create multi-size icons from one 256x256 image.

Answer 2

Icon files (.ico) can contain variaous sizes. Common sizes for icons on Windows are:

• 16×16 (e.g. in the notification area of the taskbar or in default settings for the system menu of an application). This often shows a different icon than the other sizes due to the small area, e.g. perspective is often left out (which is in the recommendations for icons as well, if I remember correctly).
• 24×24
• 32×32 (e.g. in the taskbar unless small icons are configured for it)
• 48×48
• 64×64
• 128×128
• 256×256

If a size is missing then a larger one will be used to downsample the image or, if no larger one is present, a smaller one will be upsampled (with quality loss). The different sizes are thus not particular important except to provide the artist some control over the icon in standard sizes (it's not uncommon to have the icon in a vector format and edit the rasterised version in various sizes so they look good in all of them).

The uses mentioned above are approximate and depend on various things, e.g. the user's DPI setting.