Tip 208: Changing the Displayed Icon in the About Dialog Box in
         Visual Basic 4.0

February 28, 1996

Abstract
In Microsoft® Visual Basic® version 4.0, the Microsoft Windows®
application programming interface (API) ShellAbout function lets you
display the standard Microsoft Windows About dialog box seen in
applications such as Notepad and Explorer. This article explains how to
use an icon other than the default Microsoft Windows icon that appears
in the About dialog box of your Visual Basic 4.0 application.

Selecting Icons for the ShellAbout Function
Many Microsoft® Windows® applications, such as Notepad and Explorer,
display a standard About dialog box. This About dialog box displays
information such as the name of the application, a copyright notice,
system information, or anything else the developer wants to include in
the window. Usually, the About dialog box is accessed from the
application's menu system. You can use the Microsoft Windows
application programming interface (API) ShellAbout function to
display an About dialog box in your Microsoft Visual Basic® version
4.0 application.

To use the ShellAbout function, you must include the following Declare
statement in your Visual Basic project:

Private Declare Function ShellAbout Lib "shell32.dll" Alias "ShellAboutA"
   (ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal szApp As String, ByVal szOtherStuff As String,
   ByVal hIcon As Long) As Long

As you can see, the ShellAbout function requires four arguments, as
follows:

hWnd          A long value containing the window handle.
szApp         A string containing the text that appears in the title bar
              of the About dialog box.
szOtherStuff  A string containing the text that appears after the version
              and copyright information.
hIcon         A long value containing the handle of an icon resource. When
              set to NULL, the ShellAbout function displays the default
              Microsoft Windows icon.

You can tell the ShellAbout function to display your About dialog box with
an icon of your choice rather than having the function use the Microsoft
Windows icon. You can do this by using the icon that is assigned to your
Visual Basic 4.0 application, for example. Then, when you call the
ShellAbout function, you specify the handle of that icon (Me.Icon) as
the hIcon argument to the function.

Example Program
This program shows how to change the icon that appears in the About dialog
box when using the ShellAbout function to create the dialog box.

 1. Create a new project in Visual Basic. Form1 is created by default. Set
    the Icon property of Form1 to an icon of your choice.
 2. Add the following Declare statement to the General Declarations
    section of Form1 (note that this Declare statement must be typed as
    a single line of code):

Private Declare Function ShellAbout Lib "shell32.dll" Alias "ShellAboutA"
   (ByVal hwnd As Long, ByVal szApp As String, ByVal szOtherStuff As String,
   ByVal hIcon As Long) As Long

 3. Add the following code to the Click event for Form1:

Private Sub Form_Click()
    Call ShellAbout(Me.hwnd, App.Title, "My App's Details.", Me.Icon)
End Sub

Run the example program by pressing F5. Click the form to display the
standard About dialog box. Notice that the icon appearing in the About
dialog box is the icon you assigned to Form1 at design time.

Additional References
Knowledge Base Q122893. "How to Use ShellAbout() to Display Standard
   Windows About Box."
"ShellAbout QuickInfo Overview Group." (Library, Product Documentation,
   SDKs, Win32 SDK, Win32 Programmer's Reference, Reference, Functions,
   SetStretchBitMode to ShowCaret)