La solution
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in the course of this whole series of messages having to do with true-color icons, several solutions have been offered as to how to fix the problem where shell icons (icons in taskbar, start menu, windows explorer, etc.) are displayed as 8-bit/256-colors, even though the screen display is set to 16-bit/65536-colors or higher. none of these solutions have worked for me, but im going to go over all of them anyways, if just to simply make things eaiser for others with the same problem.
1. download a program such as Tweak UI (http://www.microsoft.com/ntworkstation/downloads/PowerToys/Networking/NTTweakUI.asp). after installing Tweak UI, in its "repair" section, there is an option to repair icons. use it.
2. go to "start / settings / control panel" and double-click "display". under the "effects" tab, make sure there is a check in the box for "show icons using all possible colors". click the "apply" button.
3. go to the "settings" tab, and make sure that there is a picture of only one monitor. if there are multiple monitors, try to disable the non-primary ones (im not sure how to do this, since i dont have multiple monitors or video cards, but i believe it can be done with some right-click menus). again, hit "apply", then "ok".
4. go to "start / run" and type in "regedit". in the program that runs, navigate to "HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Control Panel \ Desktop \ WindowMetrics". if there is no "Shell Icon BPP" entry on the right side of the window, create one by going to "edit / new / string value". make sure its value is 16 or higher; if not, right-click it, select "modify", and change it. close the program.
5. open up windows explorer, and navigate to "C:\windows\". delete a file called "ShellIconsCache". note that you must be able to view hidden and system files to find this file; to enable this option, go to "tools / folder options" in windows explorer, and look under the "view" tab.
6. restart your computer.
anyways, even after following all these options, i still have crappy icons. ive even tried the option of setting the BPP down to 4, restarting, then changing it back to 16, in hopes of one of those random times when the problem goes away from unlikely fixes. so, if anyone has any more ideas, PLEASE email me at "nevermind@phreaker.net" immediately. i really cant stand these low-color icons. well, hope i maybe helped out someone else in the process of this post.