So I'm in the final stages of a project I've been working on. I went ahead and created an ICO file for my shortcut but now I'm not sure how to preserve the ICO file as the background.
When I compress the file and send it to someone else, they open it but the shortcut doesn't work, since the shortcut links to a difference space inside their local storage. The ICO is also not preserved- presumably because it is stored locally.
My question is this- what is the best/fastest way to create a shortcut that is persistent across all users computers, without forcing them to make their own? In a perfect world an ICO file could be embedded in a link, but it doesn't look like that's possible. I have no idea how you would go about addressing the issue with the hard drive, since a user's file layout could be different from my own. It seems that this would have to be accomplished programmatically.
I'm not clear on what you mean by "preserve the ICO file as the background".
You could possibly add the ICO file as a resource in you C++ project.
How to add the ICO as a resource will depend on your C++ IDE.
When you create a shortcut to the application it should use the first ICO file it can find in the .exe file.