Interesting tutorials!
Didn't know the Alt naming trick + all those details...
Here is some of my additional icon-creation info:
To safely create icons, better save the image in PNG instead of JPG. In that case no compression artefacts can appear for all cases maybe if you have some gradients for non-transparent taskbar + image below.
One nice way of creating good icons:
-Offline using the GIMP.
There is even a provided plugin that creates official full-sized icons with multiple layers including xl 256x256 size.
No matter the image size you have, all needed layers are created automatically:
1.Open/create your source image.
2.Select Script-Fu -> Utils -> Iconify:
All layers are made automatically.
3. Export as:
Type in a name of the image: manually adding '.ico' extension (if not present) is required in the name.
Then you'll see default options, which are pretty good:
4. Click export.
We usually use just the 32bit layers for 32bit resolutions in Win8.
5. Done! Your ico file is created at given location.
If done with the iconify method shown, you can ctrl+scroll to see the fully-fledged icon zoomed in as well. Full size icons aren't needed for the taskbar, but just in case if someday will be needed, this is it.
Regards,
Hopachi