Windows Icons(1) General Commands Manual Windows Icons(1)
NAME
Microsoft Windows icon files
DESCRIPTION
A Microsoft Windows icon file contains one or more images, at resolu-
tions up to 256 by 256 pixels and various bpp values. The images are
encoded either as Portable Network Graphics file (PNG), or in a format
similar to Microsoft's BMP format.
If encoded as BMP, the image includes an "AND mask", which contains
1-bit transparency data. It may also contain additional 8-bit trans-
parency data together with the color information.
Color Depth
Except for the 16 bits per pixel images and images with bit fields,
which both are rare, the colors in all BMP encoded images are RGB with 8
bits per channel. Images with bpp values lower than 16 use a palette.
I.e. the bpp value gives the number of distinct colors, not the color
depth.
XOR Mask and AND Mask
BMP encoded images contain two pixel maps: The so-called "XOR mask"
stores the color information for each pixel, and the "AND mask" stores
the transparency belonging to it.
The names and the function of these maps are most easily understood by
looking at how a 1-bpp icon image is rendered on a monochrome screen:
The pixels on the screen are logically AND-ed with the bits on the AND
mask, then the result is logically XOR-ed with the bits on the XOR mask.
The result is that if a bit on the AND mask is reset, the corresponding
bit on the XOR mask determines the color of the pixel on the screen. If
a bit in the AND mask is set and the corresponding bit in the XOR mask
is black (reset), the image is transparent. Finally, if the bits are
set in both the AND and XOR mask (the pixel on the XOR mask is white),
the background of the screen is inverted.
In color environments, a pixel on the XOR mask outside the opaque area
of the image is usually black and sometimes white, but a color other
than black and white will hardly give predictable results.
Since Windows XP, there may also be an 8-bit transparency channel in
32-bpp BMP encoded icon images. The AND mask, however, is still required
and used e.g. for generating shadows.
PNG encoded images don't contain AND masks. While rendering a PNG en-
coded image, Windows constructs an AND mask on the fly from the trans-
parency channel, if present.
Evolution of Windows Icons
The Windows icon file format has undergone some extensions since it was
invented in the mid-eighties for Windows 1:
• Windows 1 used monochrome 32x32 icons only.
• Windows 3.0 added color icons with bpp values up to 8.
• Windows 4.0 (a.k.a. Windows95) added option for 32-bpp images and
resolutions up to 256 by 256.
• NT 5.1 (a.k.a. Windows XP) added option for the 8-bit trans-
parency channel in the unused bits of 32-bpp images.
• NT 6.0 (a.k.a. Windows Vista) added option for PNG encoded images
Common Resolutions and BPP Values
Typical resolutions and bpp values of the Windows shell icons include:
────────────────────────────────────────────────
OS resolutions bpp values
Windows 3 32x32 1, 4
Windows 4 16x16, 32x32, 48x48 4, 8
NT 5 16x16, 32x32, 48x48 4, 8, 32
NT 6 16x16, 32x32, 48x48 4, 8, 32
24x24, 96x96 8, 32
256x256 32 (PNG encoded)
Within the icon file, the images with low bpp values are usually stored
first. With the same bpp value, the images are sorted by resolution,
large images first.
MIME Type and File Name Extension
The MIME type of Windows icon files is registered by IANA as im-
age/vnd.microsoft.icon, but the unofficial name image/x-icon is still
widely used.
The file name extension (used by Microsoft operating systems as file
type identifier) is .ico.
DOCUMENT SOURCE
This manual page was generated by the Netpbm tool 'makeman' from HTML
source. The master documentation is at
http://netpbm.sourceforge.net/doc/winicon.html
netpbm documentation 12 April 2013 Windows Icons(1)
Generated by dwww version 1.16 on Tue Dec 16 06:23:41 CET 2025.