Icon Missing for Embedded Object

[Mike S]

This isn't really a development issue, but I'm stumped, and looking for some
help. I am using Visio 2003, MS Office 2003 and Windows XP. When I insert an
object into any Visio drawing, and choose to display as an icon, the icon is
missing. The caption displays, and it works normally, as if the icon is
transparent. It does not matter what source I use for the icon, I get the
same problem using an exe or ico file as the source. This happens with all
application objects. I have installed the newest service packs for all Office
apps and run detect and repair. This only happens in Visio. If if put an
object into a visio drawing using another version, it works when I open it in
Visio 2003, but if I right click the object, and choose convert to try and
change the icon or caption, the icon disapears. If I save the file in Visio
2002 format and open it in an earlier version, the icon is visible. I
haven't found any documentation of this issue in Technet or on the web. Does
anyone have any ideas what is happening and what I can do to resolve it?

 

[David Parker]

Mmm ... I see what you mean. I get an icon for Bitmap File but not Acrobat
or Excel FIie icons - just the file names.
So, I haven't got a solution, but I can confirm that it is a problem ...
hopefully someone at Microsoft will add to this thread?

 

[Mike S]

Since you mentioned Bitmaps showing an icon, I did some experimenting. Visio
2003 seems to display icons for Photoshop files, Bitmaps, Media and Video
clip files, Visio Drawings, and a few others. No icons for any MS Office
files or other popular applications like Acrobat. Interestingly, there are
icons for some of the Office applets, like MS Graph charts, but not for the
Word or Powerpoint files they are usually embedded in.

 

[Mike S]

I seem to have tracked down the issue, though not the root cause, and I have
a workaround. This happens when using Visio 2003 running under Windows XP
with 32 bit color depth. It does not appear to make a difference what
service pack is intalled for either Windows XP or Visio 2003.

You can work around the issue by dropping color depth in Windows to 16 Bit
color. Then insert your object as an icon and it will display correctly. If
you then raise the color depth back to 32 bit, the icon will continue to
display, as long as you don't try to change it. If you need to change the
icon or the caption, you need to drop the color depth before making the
change and raise it after you are done.

This is not a problem for other MS Office applications, and does not occur
in Windows 2000 at any color depth. I'd love to hear from anyone who has a
better workaround, or has some information on the root cause of this issue.

Mike