Important:
This is retired content. This content is outdated and is no longer being maintained. It is provided as a courtesy for individuals who are still using these technologies. This content may contain URLs that were valid when originally published, but now link to sites or pages that no longer exist.
A version of this page is also available for
4/8/2010

This function loads the specified icon resource from the executable (.exe) file associated with an application instance.

Syntax 

HICON LoadIcon(
  HINSTANCE 
hInstance, 
  LPCTSTR 
lpIconName
);

Parameters

hInstance

[in] Handle to an instance of the module whose executable file contains the icon to be loaded. This parameter must be NULL when a standard icon is being loaded.

lpIconName

[in] Long pointer to a null-terminated string that contains the name of the icon resource to be loaded. Alternatively, this parameter can contain the resource identifier in the low-order word and zero in the high-order word. Use the MAKEINTRESOURCEmacro to create this value.

Return Value

A handle to the newly loaded icon indicates success. NULL indicates failure. To get extended error information, call GetLastError.

Remarks

This function loads the icon resource only if it has not been loaded; otherwise, it retrieves a handle to the existing resource. The function searches the icon resource for the icon most appropriate for the current display. The icon resource can be a color or monochrome bitmap.

This function can only load an icon whose size conforms to the SM_CXICON and SM_CYICON system metric values. Use the LoadImagefunction to load icons of other sizes.

In Windows CE 1.0, the icon must be a two bit per pixel (.ic2) icon or a monochrome icon.

Requirements

Header winuser.h
Library Icon.lib
Windows Embedded CE Windows CE 1.0 and later
Windows Mobile Windows Mobile Version 5.0 and later

See Also