Summary

Error -3204: Cannot Extract icon with specified index from the file specified for the icon.

Symptoms

When building a project in InstallShiel Express, the following error occurs:

Error -3204: Cannot Extract icon with specified index from the file <FILENAME> specified for the icon.

NOTE: is the icon index number and <FILENAME> is the name of the that the icon cannot be extracted from.

Cause

Error 3204 occurs due to an invalid icon index in a shortcut. More information on icon index and shortcuts can be found in the Additional Information section of this article.

The following are some of the known causes that result in this error message at build time.

1. If the icon index specified by the Icon Index attribute of a shortcut contains a value that does not have an icon associated with it or is invalid, this error may occur.
2. If the Icon File attribute of the shortcut uses a .chm file to extract the icon from, this error may occur. Files with .chm extension do not contain icons, thus resulting in this error message. If you create a shortcut to a .chm file, Express automatically populates the .chm file in the Icon File attribute of the shortcut, which generates Error 3204 at build time.
3. The file _IsIcoRes.exe is marked as read-only file. This file is used to build any icons referenced in the project. During build, this file is copied to the Interim folder. If the original file is read-only, the copy is also read-only and the error occurs when an attempt is made to stream resources into this file. This file is located in the \Support subfolder of the InstallShield installation folder.

Resolution

To resolve error 3204, follow these resolutions.

1. Make sure that the icon index specified by the Icon Index attribute of the shortcut is valid. To do so, follow these steps:
   1. Open the Shortcuts/Folders view under the Configure the Target System heading and click on the Icon Index attribute of the shortcut causing the error message.
   2. Click on the ellipse on the Icon File attribute. This launches the Change Icon dialog, which displays all the icons associated with the icon file under the Current Icon section.
   3. If the Current Icon section is empty, use the browse button to browse to a valid icon file to populate this section with the respective icons.
   4. Click on the icon of your choice in the Current Icon section to make sure that a proper icon index is populated in the Icon Index attribute of the shortcut.
      • Note: if you do not see any icons in the 'Current Icon' section of the 'Change Icon' dialog after browsing to an icon file, then Express will not be able to extract any icons at build time as the file may not contain any icons.
2. If you are creating a shortcut to a .chm file, make sure that the Icon File and Icon Index attributes of the shortcut are empty. When creating shortcuts to .chm files, you do not need to specify any icon file. The operating system automatically assigns a proper icon to these shortcuts. If you do want to specify a specific icon to a shortcut pointing to a .chm file, make sure that the Icon File attribute of this shortcut points to a valid .exe, .dll, or .ico file. Follow the steps in Resolution 1 to accomplish this.
3. Find the _IsIcoRes.exe file in the \Support subfolder (e.g. <Program Files>\InstallShield\2010\Support) and remove the read-only attribute.

Additional Information

In an Icon or Resource file that contains more than one icon, the Icon index is a positive integer used to specify which icon needs to be referenced in the shortcut. Typically, the first icon in the file bears the icon index of 0 or 1, which gets incremented with the subsequent icons.

One can use a negative number to refer to a specific resource ID in the Icon Index section of a shortcut. For example, if you specify the icon index to be -9, it will point to the icon with a resource ID of 9.