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Legality of using Shell32.dll icons

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news.microsoft.com

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Mar 10, 2004, 8:11:55 AM3/10/04
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I want a commercial application I'm working on to match the XP appearance as
closely as possible. Obviously, it's easy to use the 32 bit icons which are
stored in shell32 (e.g. folder, My Computer and back/forward), but what is
the legality on using them? Do I have to create my own icons which look
almost, but not quite, the same?


Jim Barry

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Mar 10, 2004, 6:43:15 PM3/10/04
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"I am not a lawyer", but I find it very hard to imagine that you could be sued for using icons provided by the OS. What if your application uses the common file dialog - can you then be sued because it shows icons from shell32.dll? I think not.

--
Jim Barry, MVP for Windows SDK

Robert Simpson

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Mar 10, 2004, 9:25:48 PM3/10/04
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I'd agree with you in that regard, but there's a big difference between
using an icon in by referencing the DLL and loading the resource at runtime,
and outright copying the icon out of the dll and into your own app for
redistribution. I think the former is legal while the latter is not. I'm
not a lawyer either, though :)

"Jim Barry" <j...@mvps.org> wrote in message
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