The MSBuild uses the icon file in this build step. (Visual Studio supports only creation of the assembles with one module per assembly, but compiling on lower level will allow you to have more then one per assembly, but only one of them will hold the manifest it's called 'main assembly module'.) For an assembly, this is stored in a module, the one holding an application manifest for the assembly. The application icon is actually build in application manifest. As OS uses it, it should be stored in the PE module (file) in some universal way, not specific to. The icon shown in the Taskbar is a different thing, it is called application icon. It may even make some sense (different mode of operation, different part of functionality). The form icon is a different thing, you can really change it easily during runtime. Is anyone familiar enough with this specific windows behavior to help overcome this challenge? Without the shortcut, it is very much possible for the taskbar icon to be changes as I mentioned above. The issues as far as I can tell revolves specifically around windows behavior when a shortcut to an application exists (or pinned to taskbar which I assume is creating a shortcut somewhere). There also seems to be some unhelpful comments by a few individuals claiming that this has been solved, which it hasn't (only a workaround provided by the original poster), or that it's impossible, which it isn't since there are many examples of applications that change the taskbar icon as a form of notification (outlook when you have unread emails or express vpn when you are connected to a VPN). Unfortunately this is also not a solution but I am attempting to revive this issue as it is still unresolved but the original poster has made a connection that could be key to solving this (a shortcut to the application prevents the taskbar icon from changing). None of the proposed solutions above seem to actually solve the issue and the 'chosen solution' was a hack of a work around by someone who was in desperate need of a solution but was not offered any. As the original poster mentioned, this also seems to happen if you create a shortcut to the application (and not pin it to the taskbar). Once I pin the application, the icon will not change.

If I don't pin the application, I can simply change the taskbar icon by using and it works as expected. I noticed this behavior when I would pin my application to the windows 10 task bar. I am having the exact same issue but I never realized that it was happening because of a 'Shortcut'.

Exe icon changere vb.net