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We can see endless questions about Dropbox vs TortoiseSVN vs many other apps icon overlays conflicts.

Two examples:
Why are Icon Overlays (from 3rdParty-Apps) not showing up in the Win8 Explorer?
Can I prevent the change of overlay icons?

In my case, I only have Dropbox and TortoiseSVN. Dropbox is really becoming annoying - after every update, I need to run a script I made that deletes Dropbox's overlays from registry and then restarts Windows Explorer.

I understand that Windows limits overlays to 15 probably because of performance.
However, would increasing to 25~35 cause a huge performance impact?
Why hasn't Microsoft realized yet that this is a very popular issue and tried to make a fix for this?
Why isn't there, at least, an option that advanced users can change to increase this limit?

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  • I asked this Microsoft some time ago and they tell me "perf issues" as reason. They don't increase the limit, they also have plans to kill them completely.
    – magicandre1981
    Jan 12, 2017 at 21:26
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    It isn't just performance. In the current implementation there are 4 bits in a structure that define the overlay index providing for a maximum of 15 overlays. The more significant bits needed to increase this number are used for another purpose. The only way to get more overlay icons would be to change the implementation and that would have major compatibility implications. There are large numbers of applications (well written applications that follow all the rules) that rely on the current implementation and would break if it were changed.
    – LMiller7
    Jan 12, 2017 at 22:11

3 Answers 3

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In my case, I only have Dropbox and TortoiseSVN. Dropbox is really becoming annoying - after every update, I need to run a script I made that deletes Dropbox's overlays from registry and then restarts Windows Explorer.

Remove any unused overlays from the following location:

  • KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\ShellIcon‌​OverlayIdentifiers

  • KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explor‌​er\ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers

Source: Why are Icon Overlays (from 3rdParty-Apps) not showing up in the Win8 Explorer?

Would increasing to 25~35 cause a huge performance impact?

Since the current limit cannot be changed its not possible for us to predict what sort of performance impact there would be if the limit was increased.

Why hasn't Microsoft realized yet that this is a very popular issue and tried to make a fix for this?

I would presume it effects less people then you think it does. Only somebody, from the Windows Shell team, would actually know this answer. Until Microsoft makes their decision decision known, we can only make educated guesses, which basically would be that nobody has increased the limit.

Why isn't there, at least, an option that advanced users can change to increase this limit?

Only somebody, from the Windows Shell team, would actually know this answer. Until Microsoft makes their decision decision known, we can only make educated guesses, which basically would be that nobody has written the code to allow us to increase the limit.

Raymond Chen a Microsoft Developer says the following about icon overlays

Generally speaking, overlays are not a good way of presenting information because there can be only one overlay per icon, and there is a limit of 15 overlays per ImageList. If there are two or more overlays which apply to an item, then one will win and the others will lose, at which point the value of the overlay as a way of determining what properties apply to an item diminishes since the only way to be sure that a property is missing is when you see no overlay at all. (If you see some other overlay, you can't tell whether it's because your property is missing or because that other overlay is showing instead of yours.)

Mr. Chen also stated:

Another example of applications having a selfish view of performance came from a company developing an icon overlay handler. The shell treats overlay computation as a low-priority item, since it is more important to get icons on the screen so the user can start doing whatever it is they wanted to be doing. The decorations can come later. This company wanted to know if there was a way they could improve their performance and get their overlay onto the screen even before the icon shows up, demonstrating a phenomenally selfish interpretation of "performance".

Source: What are those little overlay icons: Windows 7 edition

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  • The most annoying part is that many applications try to be "extra-smart" and add a bunch of spaces in front of the name under the ShellIconOverlayIdentifiers, pushing back the other ones. All while applications like TortoiseHG and TortoiseGIT even share their overlays, as to not compete with each other.
    – Alexander Gräf
    Jun 21, 2022 at 20:04
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I also want to correct a misconception. Yes, there is a total 15 icons alloted, BUT It's actually 11 overlay icons available because Windows System reserves 4 for itself, so effectively it's 11 icons available for other programs. (15-4=11). This is according to official Microsoft support website (archived URL)

The number of icon overlay handlers that the system can support is limited by the amount of available space for icon overlays in the system image list. There are currently 15 slots allotted for icon overlays, 4 of which are reserved by the system. When there are more than 11 icon overlay handlers registered in the system, only the first 11 icon overlays that are provided by icon overlay handlers are added to the system image list. The remaining icon overlay handlers are not used.

Source: official Microsoft support website (archived URL)

PSA Notice:

I also designed a Wikipedia page dedicated solely to list all shell icon overlays, so users can identify which ones are most useful for themselves for Dropbox, OneDrive, Tortoise, etc...

Please check out my Wiki page and please contribute:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shell_icon_overlay_identifiers

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  • 3
    This is fantastic, can you add the Adobe Creative Cloud icon overlays? AccExtIco1, AccExtIco2, AccExtIco3
    – Hemi
    Sep 16, 2019 at 2:08
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    Thank you for the Wikipedia page! And your answer deserves way more upvotes :)
    – hashchange
    Apr 7, 2020 at 16:19
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There's new blog post on the topic from Raymond Chen: Why is there a limit of 15 shell icon overlays? which goes into even more details, but the short version is: the reasons are compatibility with older versions and APIs, performance issues, and the fact that icon overlays are not recommended these days:

Basically it boils down to “It would be a lot of work and we are lazy.”

and also:

But the main reason this doesn’t get done is simply that overlays are not recommended as the way to convey metadata about a file to the user.

and:

Windows 10 takes a step away from icon overlays by moving the OneDrive file synchronization status indicator from an icon overlay to a separate Status column.

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  • Yeah! I noticed that OneDrive does it differently, and can even show files that are "online-only". That's a very cool feature that appears to give more flexibility. Thank you so much for the information.
    – Nuno
    Jun 5, 2019 at 9:42
  • Base URL to the second link changed at some point. Here's an updated link to "not recommended as the way to convey metadata about a file to the user": devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20091209-00/?p=15723
    – Peach
    Dec 15, 2020 at 18:09
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    @Peach Thanks, I updated it. Not sure if you have enough reputation, but the posts could be edited directly by you :).
    – Borislav Ivanov
    Dec 16, 2020 at 9:12
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    What API mechanism does OneDrive use in Windows 10 to “move its synchronization status indicator to a separate Status column”? Could TortoiseSVN do the same now?
    – Markus Kuhn
    Apr 14, 2021 at 12:11
  • The new “The cloud files API” in Windows 10 version 1709 provides this alternative: “In addition to the standard Windows state icons used for hydration state, you can provide custom state icons for additional service-specific properties. Replaces legacy icon overlay Shell extensions.” docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/cfapi/…
    – Markus Kuhn
    Apr 14, 2021 at 14:53

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