Does Anyone Know How to Make Vista 256x256 Icons?

[Figure Fan]

..because seriously, I MUST be doing something wrong, despite following all the instructions.

I took a PNG image and made it 256 x 256 at 32 bits and saved it as a .ico using Photoshop CS3, then I tried it with two icon editing programs, and still they show up at the tiny crappy looking size. I don't get it. My system can display larger icons, because I downloaded a set of Super Mario ones from DeviantArt, and the standard Vista icons show up properly, and in high quality.

I've used the scroll bar to maximize their size, and all of the other icons besides the ones I made grow and shrink. Absurd. I even tried restarting..

Does anyone know how to do this? I'm trying to design some icon sets for work, and it's turning into a nightmare.

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

There's some freeware icon editing programs that should format it properly.

[marhawkman]

Try converting a .BMP format picture file to .ICO. I haven't tried it with newer versions, but in NT you could simply take any appropriately sized BMP and change it to an ICO extension and it'd work. Hehe.... I once used this to turn the replace the sucktastic trash can with a picture I drew in paint of burning rubble.