High-res icon in Windows Vista alt-tab thumbnail preview?

Question

I have customized my alt-tab screen with the following:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\AltTab]
"OverlayIconPx"=dword:00000040
"MaxThumbSizePx"=dword:00000100
"MinThumbSizePcent"=dword:00000064

It works great: the thumbnail becomes 256 pixel wide and the icon at the corner of the thumbnail becomes 64x64 pixels. However, Windows doesn't load the high-res icons from the programs; instead, it uses the 16x16 pixel icon and scaled it up by nearest-neighbor. I'm sure the programs has high-res icons because I saw them with in "Extra Large Icon" view in Explorer.

So the question is: How can I force Windows to load the high-res icons for the alt-tab thumbnail preview? (Perhaps a registry key, or a .dll hack/injection?)

Answer 1

I'm adding another answer, since according to what you say, Vista's Alt-Tab isn't smart enough to use the 256x256 icons, even if there's room for them in the display.

You might consider using, as an alternative to Vista's Alt-Tab, the free product Switcher. With it you can view your actual windows in three ways: dock, grid, and tile.

See a description of it in the following article :
A Better Alt-Tab Replacement Tool for Windows

Below is the grid-mode display:

Answer 2

I don't know, but if you want a better app-switcher on Vista/7, try pressing Win-Tab. It shows the full window.

Answer 3

You might not have changed all the required settings.

From How to make Vista Taskbar Previews and ALT-TAB Thumbnails Bigger:

Save this to a .reg file and run as Administrator:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\AltTab]
"OverlayIconPx"=dword:00000023
"OverlayIconDXPx"=dword:00000000
"OverlayIconDYPx"=dword:00000000
"ThumbSpacingXPx"=dword:00000004
"ThumbSpacingYPx"=dword:00000004
"SideMarginPx"=dword:00000004
"BottomMarginPx"=dword:0000000a
"MinThumbSizePcent"=dword:00000064
"MinWidthPx"=dword:0000012c
"TopMarginPx"=dword:00000020
"MaxThumbSizePx"=dword:000000dc
"MaxIconSizePx"=dword:0000015e
"TextBottomPx"=dword:000001f4

I've also tightened up the borders and margins a bit, to make room for larger thumbnails. However, before importing this into your registry you must edit the MaxThumbSizePx to a size that works on your monitor first! The current value, above, is DC hex or 220 decimal, which works on my 1600 x 1200 primary monitor. The maximum row size is 7, so each row is 7 x 220 = 1540, right under the 1600 width.