LoadIconW function (winuser.h)
Loads the specified icon resource from the executable (.exe) file associated with an application instance.
Note
This function has been superseded by the LoadImage function (with LR_DEFAULTSIZE and LR_SHARED flags set).
Syntax
HICON LoadIconW(
[in, optional] HINSTANCE hInstance,
[in] LPCWSTR lpIconName
);
Parameters
[in, optional] hInstance
Type: HINSTANCE
A handle to the module of either a DLL or executable (.exe) file that contains the icon to be loaded. For more information, see GetModuleHandle.
To load a predefined system icon, set this parameter to NULL.
[in] lpIconName
Type: LPCTSTR
If hInstance is non-NULL, lpIconName specifies the icon resource either by name or ordinal. This ordinal must be packaged by using the MAKEINTRESOURCE macro.
If hInstance is NULL, lpIconName specifies the identifier (beginning with the IDI_ prefix) of a predefined system icon to load.
Return value
Type: HICON
If the function succeeds, the return value is a handle to the newly loaded icon.
If the function fails, the return value is NULL. To get extended error information, call GetLastError.
Remarks
LoadIcon 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.
LoadIcon can only load an icon whose size conforms to the SM_CXICON and SM_CYICON system metric values. Use the LoadImage function to load icons of other sizes.
Note
The winuser.h header defines LoadIcon as an alias that automatically selects the ANSI or Unicode version of this function based on the definition of the UNICODE preprocessor constant. Mixing usage of the encoding-neutral alias with code that is not encoding-neutral can lead to mismatches that result in compilation or runtime errors. For more information, see Conventions for Function Prototypes.
Requirements
| Requirement | Value |
|---|---|
| Minimum supported client | Windows 2000 Professional [desktop apps only] |
| Minimum supported server | Windows 2000 Server [desktop apps only] |
| Target Platform | Windows |
| Header | winuser.h (include Windows.h) |
| Library | User32.lib |
| DLL | User32.dll |
| API set | ext-ms-win-ntuser-gui-l1-1-0 (introduced in Windows 8) |
See also
Conceptual