reading an application's manifest file?

Question

Is there an easy way to read an application's already embedded manifest file?

I was thinking along the lines of an alternate data stream?

Answer 1

Windows manifest files are Win32 resources. In other words, they're embedded towards the end of the EXE or DLL. You can use LoadLibraryEx, FindResource, LoadResource and LockResource to load the embedded resource.

Here's a simple example that extracts its own manifest...

BOOL CALLBACK EnumResourceNameCallback(HMODULE hModule, LPCTSTR lpType,
    LPWSTR lpName, LONG_PTR lParam)
{
    HRSRC hResInfo = FindResource(hModule, lpName, lpType);
    DWORD cbResource = SizeofResource(hModule, hResInfo);

    HGLOBAL hResData = LoadResource(hModule, hResInfo);
    const BYTE *pResource = (const BYTE *)LockResource(hResData);

    TCHAR filename[MAX_PATH];
    if (IS_INTRESOURCE(lpName))
        _stprintf_s(filename, _T("#%d.manifest"), lpName);
    else
        _stprintf_s(filename, _T("%s.manifest"), lpName);

    FILE *f = _tfopen(filename, _T("wb"));
    fwrite(pResource, cbResource, 1, f);
    fclose(f);

    UnlockResource(hResData);
    FreeResource(hResData);

    return TRUE;   // Keep going
}

int _tmain(int argc, _TCHAR* argv[])
{
    const TCHAR *pszFileName = argv[0];

    HMODULE hModule = LoadLibraryEx(pszFileName, NULL, LOAD_LIBRARY_AS_DATAFILE);
    EnumResourceNames(hModule, RT_MANIFEST, EnumResourceNameCallback, NULL);
    FreeLibrary(hModule);
    return 0;
}

Alternatively, you can use MT.EXE from the Windows SDK:

>mt -inputresource:dll_with_manifest.dll;#1 -out:extracted.manifest

Answer 2

You can extract/replace/merge/validate manifests using the command line manifest tool, mt.exe , which is part of the Windows SDK:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.1>mt /?
Microsoft (R) Manifest Tool version 5.2.3790.2075
...
> To extract manifest out of a dll:
mt.exe -inputresource:dll_with_manifest.dll;#1 -out:extracted.manifest

Different locations:

• C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft SDKs\\Windows\\v6.1\\bin
• C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Windows Kits\\10\\bin\\10.0.18362.0\\x86

Answer 3

Open the file in Notepad. The thing's in plain text.

Answer 4

有可用的清单查看器工具在这里-我不知道，如果作者将提供源代码。

Answer 5

Resource Tuner would be nice if it supported x64 code, but as of today it's still only for 32-bit apps. Resource Hacker (the newest public beta) does support both x86 and x64 which is available from here: http://angusj.com/resourcehacker/

Answer 6

The easiest way to view/edit manifests in compiled apps is using Resource Tuner: http://www.restuner.com/tour-manifest.htm

In some cases, it's more robust than mt.exe from MS, and it's a visual tool.

Answer 7

Working a bit from Roger's code, here's the code that I use. It assume that the Manifest is at id #1. I guess this is the default for .exe. See the comment by Wedge, you may have to also check id #2 if you're working with DLL.

    HMODULE module = ::LoadLibraryEx(pathname, NULL, LOAD_LIBRARY_AS_DATAFILE);
    if (module == NULL)
        return false;
    HRSRC resInfo = ::FindResource(module, MAKEINTRESOURCE(1), RT_MANIFEST); // resource id #1 should be the manifest
    if (resInfo) {
        HGLOBAL resData = ::LoadResource(module, resInfo);
        DWORD resSize = ::SizeofResource(module, resInfo);
        if (resData && resSize) {
            const char *res = (const char *)::LockResource(resData); // the manifest
            if (res) {
                // got the manifest
            }
            ::UnlockResource(resData);
        }
        ::FreeResource(resData);
    }
    ::FreeLibrary(module);

Answer 8

通过从项目中删除开发人员许可证 ( *_TemporaryKey.pfx ) 或更改 .pfx 的名称来解决此问题。

Answer 9

As a side reminder: remember that manifests can also be standalone files with the same name as the app (extended by ".manifest").

So if you want to check out which manifest is really used at runtime, this must be taken into account.

Answer 10

Sysinterals "sigcheck -m" dumps the manifest of an exe. (You can wget from live.sysinternals.com).

Sigcheck - Windows Sysinternals _ Microsoft Docs