title: Appropriate icon for Windows 8 installer
body: <p>I'm trying to figure out which icon I'm supposed to (and allowed to) ship with my installer. I'd rather not use a custom one, as many apps (including some of Microsoft's own, such as Office and Visual Studio) do these days. I want the icon to be recognizable as &quot;this installs a piece of software&quot;, not &quot;the graphics designer had a little too much fun&quot;.</p>
  <p>So, I went through the common icons in recent versions of Windows, all of which tend to be found, still, on a current version:</p>
  <ul>
  <li><p>the icon for <code>.msi</code> files is still, as of the current Windows 10 Technical Preview, the 15-years-old Office 2000 / Windows Installer 1.0 one. It maxes out at 32x32 and lacks an alpha channel. This means, for instance, that it is scaled awkwardly when put on the Desktop.</p>
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/hXsFC.png" alt=".msi icon" /></p>
  </li>
  <li><p>Windows XP introduced a new style. Plenty of application installers still ship with this today.</p>
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/ZE6c2.png" alt="XP-style setup icon" /></p>
  </li>
  <li><p>Here's Vista's style. I rarely see this used by third parties.</p>
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/S10YO.png" alt="Vista-style setup icon" /></p>
  </li>
  <li><p>And, lastly, that of Windows 8. Same: third parties don't appear to use it.</p>
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/u1iAn.png" alt="Win8-style setup icon" /></p>
  </li>
  <li><p>Bonus: ClickOnce bootstrapper <code>setup.exe</code> files created with recent versions of Visual Studio have an icon that's hard to describe kindly, and oddly also once again lacks anything larger than 32x32.</p>
  <p><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/EFe9w.png" alt="ClickOnce bootstrapper setup icon" /></p>
  </li>
  </ul>
  <p>The Windows 8 one I find the most appealing. It may be a little too generic, but it connotes &quot;running this puts something on your machine&quot; without suggesting legacy technology like floppies or optical discs (my app is distributed over the Web).</p>
  <p>However, given that I've never seen an app use this icon, I'm wondering if it's merely a trend that people prefer to ship their own custom icons (or, lazily, still use the extremely dated MSI one), or if Microsoft doesn't want us using it. I couldn't find a license.</p>
  <p>The closest to guidelines I've found are <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dn742485(v=vs.85).aspx" rel="noreferrer">these</a>, which haven't been updated since Vista(!) and don't go into details on which standard icons to use when and where. (The <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dn742488(v=vs.85).aspx" rel="noreferrer">Standard Icons</a> article only refers to four icons. Four.)</p>
  <p>So, where do I find guidelines and licenses for a setup icon I'm supposed and permitted to use?</p>