If you are running Windows with a higher DPI setting you will notice that most application icons on the desktop look terrible. Even high profile application icons such as Google Chrome look terrible while for example Firefox, Skype and MS Office icons look sharp:

(example)

I suspect that most icons look blurry because a lower resolution icon is scaled up rather than using a higher resolution icon.

I want to give my application a high quality icon and can't seem to convince Windows to use the higher resolution icon. I have created a multi-resolution icon with the free icon editor IcoFX. The icon is provided in 16x16, 24x24, 32x32,48x48, 128x128 and 256x256 (!) (all in 32 bit including alpha channel) yet Windows seems to use the 128x128 version of the icon on the desktop and scale it up which looks terrible. (I am using Windows 7 - 64 bit - the icon is placed by means of setting up a shortcut in the msi (created via Visual Studio 2008 Setup Project) and pointing it to the .ico file that contains the multi-resolution icon)

I have tried removing the 128x128 icon but to no avail. Interestingly in Windows Explorer the icon looks great even when using the Extra Large Icon setting. How can I create a high quality desktop icon that looks great on higher DPI settings on Windows?