Custom icon for ClickOnce application in 'Add or Remove Programs'

Question

A ClickOnce application created using Mage is not showing the icon that was specified in for the Mage command-line parameter in control panel Add or Remove Programs.

I read some blogs, like:

• Application icon is not displayed in Add/Remove Programs dialog

• Missing Icon in Add/Remove Programs for ClickOnce Application

How can I achieve this without editing registry keys? Is it possible?

Answer 1

There's no way to do this without editing the registry, but you can do it programmatically. You have to be sure the icon is included in the deployment. We set our assembly description to the same string as our Product Name, so we can look through the uninstall strings for the right application by searching for the assembly description. This way, we don't have to hardcode the product name in this code.

        private static void SetAddRemoveProgramsIcon()
    {
        //only run if deployed 
        if (System.Deployment.Application.ApplicationDeployment.IsNetworkDeployed
             && ApplicationDeployment.CurrentDeployment.IsFirstRun)
        {
            try
            {
                Assembly code = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
                AssemblyDescriptionAttribute asdescription =
                    (AssemblyDescriptionAttribute)Attribute.GetCustomAttribute(code, typeof(AssemblyDescriptionAttribute));
                string assemblyDescription = asdescription.Description;

                //the icon is included in this program
                string iconSourcePath = Path.Combine(System.Windows.Forms.Application.StartupPath, "youriconfile.ico");

                if (!File.Exists(iconSourcePath))
                    return;

                RegistryKey myUninstallKey = Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey(@"Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall");
                string[] mySubKeyNames = myUninstallKey.GetSubKeyNames();
                for (int i = 0; i < mySubKeyNames.Length; i++)
                {
                    RegistryKey myKey = myUninstallKey.OpenSubKey(mySubKeyNames[i], true);
                    object myValue = myKey.GetValue("DisplayName");
                    if (myValue != null && myValue.ToString() == assemblyDescription)
                    {
                        myKey.SetValue("DisplayIcon", iconSourcePath);
                        break;
                    }
                }
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                //log an error
            }
        }
    }