I am using IShellItemImageFactory to get icons and thumbnails for files and directories. In most cases this works great, but in some cases I get an image that is quite different from the one in explorer.exe.
Folders in explorer.exe show some of their contents represented as pieces of paper. Whenever I request an image for a directory, I get an empty folder in my program.
Videos playable by Windows Media Player in explorer.exe show as a piece of filmstrip with a thumbnail as the cell. When I request an image for such a video file I get just a thumbnail with no movie strip border.
I am sure there are other examples, but in general I just want to know if there is a way to request an image from the system that looks exactly like whatever is displayed on the desktop or in a folder in explorer.exe. I want everything to look the same so my program isn’t “sloppy.”
The answer is here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc144118(v=VS.85).aspx#adornments
The adornments are the effects I am missing and it seems I would have to render them manually.
TiKu on MSDN explained this to me and deserves the credit.