HOWTO: Replace the Default CMM on Windows XP (324032)

SUMMARY

Image Color Management (ICM) version 2.0 is a standard system component of Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows 2000, and Microsoft Windows XP. ICM is built into these operating systems as a subset of the Win32 application programming interface (API) and is available to any Win32 application.

An International Color Consortium (ICC) profile is a file that describes the color characteristics of a device (such as a monitor, a scanner, or a printer). The Microsoft Image Color Matching (ICM) mechanism, or more specifically, the Color Management Module (CMM), uses files of this type to obtain reasonable color consistency across devices.

A default CMM is provided with each operating system that supports ICM 2.0 (Microsoft Windows 98, Microsoft Windows 2000, and Microsoft Windows XP).

On Microsoft Windows XP only, the CMM that ICM 2.0 uses as its default CMM can be changed.

MORE INFORMATION

On Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Windows XP, a new CMM is registered with the system by calling the RegisterCMM function.

On Windows XP only, a CMM becomes the default CMM on the system if its CMM ID is CMM_WINDOWS_DEFAULT.

NOTE: The CMM must not be named ICM32.dll because this causes conflicts with Windows File Protection. The CMM must support all required and all optional CMM functions to be the system-default CMM.

REFERENCES

For more information about Image Color Matching and Color Management Modules, see the Help documentation for Win32 software development kit (SDK) and Windows Driver Development Kit (DDK).

For more information about ICC profiles and color management, see the ICC Web site at:

International Color Consortium
http://www.color.org