Where are Access icons located?

[wvmitchell]

I am building a form to simulate the Access 2000-2003 database window, to use in Access 2007 so my users don't freak out with the new interface.

I have a program called Resource Extractor form Alchemy Mindworks that allows extracting bitmaps and icons from EXE and DLL files, but I can't seem to find which file has the Access icons embedded.

Thanks in advance,
Bill Mitchell

[ADezii]

I am building a form to simulate the Access 2000-2003 database window, to use in Access 2007 so my users don't freak out with the new interface.

I have a program called Resource Extractor form Alchemy Mindworks that allows extracting bitmaps and icons from EXE and DLL files, but I can't seem to find which file has the Access icons embedded.

Thanks in advance,
Bill Mitchell

I'm not positive, but try the Shared Office .DLL, namely MSO.DLL.

[wvmitchell]

Are you talking about
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE11\MSO.DLL
that's not the one. It does have a few icons but not the main "stash" that I'm looking for.

Specifically, I'd like to find the icons used for the database window.

Thanks,
Bill

[ADezii]

Are you talking about
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\OFFICE11\MSO.DLL
that's not the one. It does have a few icons but not the main "stash" that I'm looking for.

Specifically, I'd like to find the icons used for the database window.

Thanks,
Bill

Sorry about that, I thought that all the Office Components had a shared 'Icon Pool' and that MSO.DLL was it. Guess not!

[FishVal]

Why not to grab them directly from screen?

[ADezii]

I am building a form to simulate the Access 2000-2003 database window, to use in Access 2007 so my users don't freak out with the new interface.

I have a program called Resource Extractor form Alchemy Mindworks that allows extracting bitmaps and icons from EXE and DLL files, but I can't seem to find which file has the Access icons embedded.

Thanks in advance,
Bill Mitchell

Hello Bill, back again with an update. I was partially correct in my 'Common Icon Pool' Theory and here is the entire scoop. First of all, they are not Icons but Bitmap Images (*.bmps), and Office XP stores this hugh collection of Bitmaps as an Office-wide resource as a single 'slab' in one of its .DLLs. Storing them this way saves on Graphics Resources and in addition, Access provides its own set of extra Button Bitmaps mostly for historical purposes. Msaccess.exe provides a Method for retrieving a single Bitmap from the slab which involves an Index into this group of Bitmaps and the subsequent filling of a Byte() Array with the requested Bitmap. I've condensed a large amount of Code and Objects to a single Form, Query, and Module. This will give you the capability to either Save a specific Bitmap from the 'slab' to disk as a *.BMP, or to assign it to the Picture Property of an Object. This functionality will give you access to the 226 Bitmaps used by Access and the 5,700 used by Office. In your case, I assume that you may want to Save them to disk, then load them into selective Controls. In any case, I hope this helps. If you are interested, send me a Private Message with your E-Mail address and I'll send you the Database as an Attachment. The code does use ADO, so you will need to set this Reference.

[wvmitchell]

Thanks, I'm sending you a PM wih my email.

That makes a lot of sense. I can remember finding a "327" bitmap back in the Access 2.0 days that was a slab like you describe, but never found that one in the modern Access file. I'm anxious to see how to extract those individual bitmaps.

[ADezii]

Thanks, I'm sending you a PM wih my email.

That makes a lot of sense. I can remember finding a "327" bitmap back in the Access 2.0 days that was a slab like you describe, but never found that one in the modern Access file. I'm anxious to see how to extract those individual bitmaps.

Hopefully, you will already have received the Database which I sent to you last night. There are, however, 3 important items that I wish to make you aware of:

1. If you Import frmButtonPix into a New Database, you will run into a problem. This Form uses an ActiveX Control, the MSForms 2.0 Scrollbar. I think the Reference to it in code is hsb. When you Import this Form into a New Database, the Form will Import correctly, but the Reference to the MSForms Library is lost. There is, however, a simple fix to this problem, place another MSForms Control, anyone will do, on the Form once you have successfully Imported it. The correct Reference will be magically re-established. This seems to be an on-going problem with Importing Forms containing ActiveX Controls.
2. If you are changing the Picture on a Button permanently, you will need to Open the Form containing that Button in Design View, then save the changed Form. Programmatic changes made to Forms at run-time are not saved with the Form. I'm sure that you are probably aware of all this, but mentioning it just in case.
3. Again, don't forget a Reference to the Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects X.X Library is required.

[NeoPa]

A new question related to this one has been posted as :
Work on Access Icon.

[jordimarsa]

I have developed a method to extract about 6000 bitmap images and save them into a table as text encrypted as base64. In this way I have a form with 1024 butons and I can load the images in a matter of seconds and scroll to see all the images. Then you can select one of them and it will open the form in designing mode with and the first control will show the image selected. In this way you can copy that control in any Access application and use the image desired.

It has been really useful to use the same office icons to ease the recognition of each action.

The problem is that it has been developed by myself using information of many webs and a little bit of own knowledge and everything is messed up. So if you want me to share it send me a mail to <Snip> and I will order everything.

*** Admin Edit ***
We don't allow sharing of email addresses publicly in the forums so anyone interested should please use the PM system to get in touch with Jordi instead.

[NeoPa]

It's a little unusual to allow such interjections into a thread but I can see how this might be interesting to others who may be interested in the same problem so I'll allow it.