Question

I wan’t to customize the icon displayed within the windows 7 taskbar.
When my app is running, I can do it by changing main window icon but, when the app is pinned, the exe’s icon is displayed.

How can I set the taskbar icon for my app to an icon different from the one embedded within the exe ?

Not tried, this solution may work but looks dirty.

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Edit :

Our app is compiled once but depending on config file, features are enabled or not so it’s a product or another. We do not want to compile one exe for each product.

The solution above may not work as many instances of my app can be installed in different pathes (so you end up with the same exe file name but different icons!), is this registry key poorly designed or am I missing something?

Answer 1

EDIT The info below is a bit obsolete; all new Windows 7 bits are now available as a managed API, available here: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/WindowsAPICodePack

There is a series of articles on the new Taskbar API by the debugging guru Sasha Goldshtein. You should have a look at the Overlay Icons and Progress Bars API.

You can download the sample code from Windows 7 Taskbar Developer Resources on Microsoft Code. What you’re looking for is the IMClient sample:

The IMClient sample demonstrates how
taskbar overlay icons and taskbar
progress bars can light up an
application’s taskbar button instead
of relying on an additional dialog or
on an icon in the system notification
area (tray).

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I believe this should help you achieve what you want.