Windows 10 may be essentially an ex-operating system, but that doesn’t mean Microsoft has relinquished its appetite for really ancient code. For proof, look no further than the icons contained within the antediluvian pifmgr.dll file that lives on in Windows 11 to this day.
According to this blog post on the Microsoft Dev site by Raymond Cheng, pifmgr.dll was added in Windows 95 and is chock full of icons that were created mostly for fun. The idea was that they provided a library of icons “for people to use for their own homemade shortcut files.”
If Cheng’s list is complete, there are a grand total of 38 icons contained in the dll file. The dll also does duty, “as the name might suggest, to manage PIF files, which are Program Information Files that describe how to set up a virtual MS-DOS session for running a specific application.”
And yet it still clocks in at just 38 kilobytes. Remarkable in an age when your typical minor software update is measured in gigabytes and a multiple-terabyte SSD get filled up in picoseconds. Well, ish.
Whatever, the icons are 32 by 32 pixels and 16 colours, though Windows 95 did actually support 256-colour icons. And if you rifle through Windows 11’s nether regions, it doesn’t take long to unearth examples of that type of icon still in use today.
The System32 folder in the main Windows directory, for instance, is a veritable hodgepodge of icons from throughout the history of Windows, dating back to at least Windows 95 and including softer, 32-bit icons with support for transparency from Windows XP, the heavily stylised and Aero-inspired 256 by 256 pixel icons from Windows Vista, the flat “Metro” icons from Windows 8, and right through to the minimalist monotone icons used for some elements in Windows 11.
Anywho, for those enough old enough to remember those earlier Windows builds, many of the icons in pifmgr.dll feel familiar. The desktop computer and filing cabinet definitely ring a bell.
But there are also some novel, intriguing, incongruous, esoteric and downright odd icons in that batch of Windows 95 art work. Military items from antiquity, including swords and even flail weapons, feature frequently.
The Doric column is pleasing, as is the cruise ship and the running rabbit. Then there’s the apple with a bite taken out of it that looks rather too much like a mirror image of the famous icon from a competitor.
Anywho, hop on over the the Windows Dev blog post to peruse the rest of the pifmgr.dll icon set at your leisure. And marvel once again that the whole lot fits inside 38KB with plenty of space to spare.
