manifest file research

manifest file research

1. CFileVersionInfo - Getting the File Version Information

Class for getting file version information This class wraps the GetFileVersionInfo, GetFileVersionInfoSize, VerQueryValue, and VerLanguageName API functions and can be used to determine full file version information.

2. Creating Secure Trial Versions for .NET Applications - A Tutorial

Implement trial licensing model for your .NET applications with minimal costs

3. Using Manifest Settings for VC6 buildchain

This tip explains how to get manifest support using the VC6 buildchain. I will use an example of requiring administrator rights for execution.

At the end, I will explain the background and thereby why one would need to add a manifest file in this style, rather than just leave it without one.

4. Understanding Manifest Generation for C/C++ Programs

A manifest is an XML document that can be an external XML file or a resource embedded inside an application or an assembly. The manifest of an isolated application is used to manage the names and versions of shared side-by-side assemblies to which the application should bind at run time. The manifest of a side-by-side assembly specifies its dependencies on names, versions, resources, and other assemblies.

There are two ways to create a manifest for an isolated application or a side-by-side assembly. First, the author of the assembly can manually create a manifest file following rules and naming requirements. Alternatively, if a program only depends on Visual C++ assemblies such as CRT, MFC, ATL or others, then a manifest can be generated automatically by the linker.

5. SIDE-BY-SIDE MANIFEST MAKER

Technical details It is important to understand that the same or very similar terminology is used by both win32 side-by-side and .Net technology. Win32 side-by-side assemblies and manifests are not the same as .Net assemblies and manifests - do not confuse them.

A win32 side-by-side assembly is a collection of any files described by a common manifest. The manifest is an XML file matching a predefined schema. http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa375632.aspx.

The Windows system loader and COM implementation have been modified to implement this new technology. As a new process is created, the operating system creates an activation context for the process. This is a list of all files, COM attributes and window classes included in the application manifest and all manifests recursively referenced by that manifest. Any request for a COM component first checks if this component is included in the activation context. Any request to load a module using LoadLibraryExW (all other forms of LoadLibrary* eventually call this function) first checks if the module should be loaded from a location described by the activation context.

Installation Instrucions: Download the task using the link at the bottom of the right panel on this page. Unzip to a folder of your choice. We recommend:

• on 64-bit systems: C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\MazeComputer\sxs32mm
• on 32-bit systems: C:\Program Files\MSBuild\MazeComputer\sxs32mm
The included HTML file lists the properties which, to a large extent, correspond to sxs32cmd.exe command line options. The included example project illustrates the use of the task.

Why do you need our help We know win32 side-by-side (both 32-bit and 64-bit) inside out. We know how it works, where it works and, most importantly, where it does not work. We offer consulting, mentoring and development services. Whether you need guidance for your developers or help in corporate deployment planning contact us at sxs@mazecomputer.com. We are here to help you.

Why you need Side-by-Side Manifest Maker Typing XML by hand is tedious and error prone. Creating XML using general XML editing tools helps you make the XML well-formed and valid, but you still have to identify and type in all appropriate GUIDs, ProgIDs and other attributes. Look in your own %systemroot%\WinSxS\Manifests directory. Open any manifest file with notepad or an XML editing tool. In our experience it takes between 2 and 8 hours to create a manifest comparable to x86_Microsoft.MSXML2_6bd6b9abf345378f_4.1.0.0_x-ww_b319d8da.Manifest (if you do not have Microsoft XML 4 installed, download it from Microsoft: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3144b72b-b4f2-46da-b4b6-c5d7485f2b42&displaylang=en). It takes 5 to 10 minutes to create it with Side-by-Side Manifest Maker. And, in almost all cases, our manifest is right the first time.

6. Quick start guide:

The following text assumes that you have already installed Manifest Maker. If you have not yet done so, please do it now and then come back to this guide. If you have not read the introduction, we suggest you read it now. Step-by-step guide to creating your first manifest. We create a manifest for Windows Notepad. The objective is to go through the steps of creating a very simple manifest. What is inside a manifest. We take a quick peek inside the manifest created above to introduce basic manifest terminology. Step-by-step guide to creating your first complete project. Example of a project for a very common scenario of an application with some COM DLLs. A large fraction of in-house business applications and many shrink-wrapped programs fall into this category. More details about a manifest anatomy. This manifest contains all pieces that you will encounter in manifests built with Manifest Maker. This chapter examines the manifest contents in more detail and introduces some very important concepts associated with manifests. Required files from Microsoft Software Development Kits. You need Windows SDK installed or, at least, selected tools available to Manifest Maker.

7. How-To Guides and Usage Notes

How-To Guides This section explains how to perform selected Manifest Maker and Windows tasks. The division between Manifest Maker and Windows tasks is quite flexible since most tasks here involve both Manifest Maker and Windows.

8. Advanced Side-by-Side Topics

Advanced Topics This chapter contains information helpful in planning how to use Side-by-Side technology. It does not require working knowledge of the program but it is very helpful to understand the basics of Side-by-Side. We strongly suggest that you read the introduction to Side-by-Side prior to studying this topic.

9. User Interface

The program interface is very simple and clean. There is one main window with menu, toolbar and status bar. The menu and toolbar provide access to all program functions. The window is resizable to take best advantage of your display area.

10. What is Side-by-Side

A bit of history… Since the very beginning Windows used dynamic link libraries. In the days of 12MHz 80286 processors or 25 MHz i386 when 16MB of RAM was considered lavish, every byte counted. DLLs saved the precious RAM by using the same image for multiple tasks loaded at the same time. In the beginning only the operating system came with DLLs but very soon developers started using this mechanism to not only share code between tasks but also to load pieces of functionality as they were needed and unload them when the task no longer required them. We use DLLs today, but not necessarily because of memory constraints. We use them for common code, code libraries, optional functionality, COM components, internationalization and many other reasons.

11. Manifest Generation in Visual Studio

Generation of a manifest file for a particular project can be controlled in the project Property Pages dialog. On the Configuration Properties tab, click Linker, then Manifest File, then Generate Manifest. By default the project properties of new projects are set to generate a manifest file. However it is possible to disable generation of the manifest for a project using the Generate Manifest property of the project. When this property is set to Yes, the manifest for this project is generated. Otherwise the linker ignores assembly information when resolving dependencies of the application code, and does not generate the manifest.

The build system in Visual Studio allows the manifest to be embedded in the final binary application file, or generated as an external file. This behavior is controlled by the Embed Manifest option in the Project Properties dialog. To set this property, open the Manifest Tool node, then select Input and Output. If the manifest is not embedded, it is generated as an external file and saved in the same directory as the final binary. If the manifest is embedded, Visual Studio embeds the final manifests using the following process:

1. After the source code is compiled to object files, the linker collects dependent assembly information. While linking the final binary, the linker generates an intermediate manifest that is used later to generate the final manifest.
2. After the intermediate manifest and linking are finished, the manifest tool will be executed to merge a final manifest and save it as an external file.
3. The project build system then detects whether the manifest generated by the manifest tool contains different information than the manifest already embedded in the binary.
4. If the manifest embedded in the binary is different from the manifest generated by the manifest tool, or the binary does not contain an embedded manifest, Visual Studio will invoke the linker one more time to embed the external manifest file inside the binary as a resource.
5. If the manifest embedded in the binary is the same as the manifest generated by the manifest tool, the build will continue to the next build steps.

The manifest is embedded inside the final binary as a text resource and it can be viewed by opening the final binary as a file in Visual Studio. To ensure that the manifest points to the correct libraries, follow the steps described in Understanding the Dependencies of a Visual C++ Application or follow the suggestions described in the Troubleshooting section.

12. Understanding the Dependencies of a Visual C++ Application

To determine which Visual C++ libraries an application depends on, you can view the project properties. (In Solution Explorer, right-click on the project and choose Properties to open the Property Pages dialog box.) On Windows 8 and earlier, you can also use the Dependency Walker (depends.exe), which gives a more comprehensive picture of the dependencies. For more recent versions of Windows the lucasg/Dependencies tool provides similar functionality (this is a third-party tool not guaranteed by Microsoft.)

In the Property Pages dialog box, you can examine various pages under Configuration Properties to understand the dependencies. For example, if your project uses the MFC libraries and you choose Use of MFC, Use MFC in a Shared DLL on the Configuration Properties, General page, your application at run time depends on MFC DLLs such as mfc.dll. If your application doesn't use MFC, it might depend on the CRT library if you choose a Runtime Library value of Multi-threaded Debug DLL (/MDd) or Multi-threaded DLL (/MD) on the Configuration Properties, C/C++, Code Generation page.

By using depends.exe, you can examine a list of DLLs that are linked to the application at load time, and a list of its delay-loaded DLLs. If you want to get a complete list of DLLs that are dynamically loaded at run time, you can use the profiling feature in depends.exe to test the application until you're sure that all code paths have been exercised. When you end the profiling session, depends.exe shows which DLLs were dynamically loaded during run time.

When you use depends.exe, be aware that a DLL might have a dependency on another DLL or on a specific version of a DLL. You can use depends.exe on either the development computer or on a target computer. On the development computer, depends.exe reports the DLLs that are required to support an application. If you have trouble getting an application to run on a target computer, you can copy depends.exe to it and then open the application in the tool so that you can determine whether any required DLLs are missing or incorrect.

When you know which DLLs your application depends on, you can determine the ones that you have to redistribute with your application when you deploy it to another computer. In most cases, you don't have to redistribute system DLLs, but you may have to redistribute DLLs for Visual C++ libraries. For more information, see Determining Which DLLs to Redistribute.

13. Create projects easily with private MFC, ATL and CRT assemblies

An easy way to create programs that use CRT, MFC and ATL library DLLs from application local folders

14. How to: Create a product manifest

To deploy prerequisites for your application, you can create a bootstrapper package. A bootstrapper package contains a single product manifest file but a package manifest for each locale. The package manifest contains localization-specific aspects of your package. This includes strings, end-user license agreements, and the language packs.

15. How to run application with Admin privileges using Manifest file in Visual Studio 2005?
I need to create an application which needs to create files/folders in "C:\Program Files","Users[username]" and Sys32. Also the application needs to make some registry entry.
This application needs to work on Vista and higher. Also, on Windows Server 2003 and higher.
The above Operating Systems have the concept of User Account Control (UAC), where to access Program Files and writing in registry requires admin privileges.

Go to the Propertis page of your project in Visual Studio, click on Linker -> Manifest File in the tree view. Then in the right hand pane select the privilege you require in the UAC Execution Level selector. In all cases this will raise the prompt in Windows unless UAC is turned off.

16. How To Make .NET Application To Run As Administrator

As a .Net client-server application developer, sometimes you may need to force your application to run as administrator. Though it is not an ideal solution to run an application always as an administrator, you may need it in certain unavoidable situations. One among the way is to add an application manifest to your application. Here I have provided the steps to add a manifest to the application and set the level to requireAdministrator, to force it to run as administrator. In addition, I have also provided a workaround to bypass the UAC prompt while launching the application.

17. C# run as administrator without uac prompt

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