The problem is that the icon doesn't look good on every background color. The default background color is blue (I believe) and the blue icon on the blue background did not work well at all. At least with the dark gray background (the same color Microsoft themselves use for their visual studio icon background) the icon stands out in the start menu, on the splash screen, and in the taskbar.
As a side note, the icon is a transparent icon - I'm just choosing to use an explicit background color behind it (it's a setting I can choose in the application manifest). I can change that background color easily (or revert to transparent), but I don't think the icon works with the blue background color, so I'm hesitant to do that.
One thing that bothers me is I used a plugin to generate all the required icon sizes, and even though I'm following the guidelines, my icon looks really small in the start menu. Microsoft doesn't seem to be following their own guidelines in regards to that, so I'm a little confused by it. I may increase the application icon size for the start menu and disregard their icon guidelines.
Miike
As a side note, the icon is a transparent icon - I'm just choosing to use an explicit background color behind it (it's a setting I can choose in the application manifest). I can change that background color easily (or revert to transparent), but I don't think the icon works with the blue background color, so I'm hesitant to do that.
One thing that bothers me is I used a plugin to generate all the required icon sizes, and even though I'm following the guidelines, my icon looks really small in the start menu. Microsoft doesn't seem to be following their own guidelines in regards to that, so I'm a little confused by it. I may increase the application icon size for the start menu and disregard their icon guidelines.
Miike