I have a version resource in my resources in a C++ project which contains version number, copyright and build details. Is there an easy way to access this at run-time to populate my help/about dialog as I am currently maintaining seperate const values of this information. Ideally, the solution should work for Windows/CE mobile and earlier versions of Visual C++ (6.0 upwards).
This is an edited version of my original answer.
bool GetProductAndVersion(CStringA & strProductName, CStringA & strProductVersion)
{
// get the filename of the executable containing the version resource
TCHAR szFilename[MAX_PATH + 1] = {0};
if (GetModuleFileName(NULL, szFilename, MAX_PATH) == 0)
{
TRACE("GetModuleFileName failed with error %d\n", GetLastError());
return false;
}
// allocate a block of memory for the version info
DWORD dummy;
DWORD dwSize = GetFileVersionInfoSize(szFilename, &dummy);
if (dwSize == 0)
{
TRACE("GetFileVersionInfoSize failed with error %d\n", GetLastError());
return false;
}
std::vector<BYTE> data(dwSize);
// load the version info
if (!GetFileVersionInfo(szFilename, NULL, dwSize, &data[0]))
{
TRACE("GetFileVersionInfo failed with error %d\n", GetLastError());
return false;
}
// get the name and version strings
LPVOID pvProductName = NULL;
unsigned int iProductNameLen = 0;
LPVOID pvProductVersion = NULL;
unsigned int iProductVersionLen = 0;
// replace "040904e4" with the language ID of your resources
if (!VerQueryValue(&data[0], _T("\\StringFileInfo\\040904e4\\ProductName"), &pvProductName, &iProductNameLen) ||
!VerQueryValue(&data[0], _T("\\StringFileInfo\\040904e4\\ProductVersion"), &pvProductVersion, &iProductVersionLen))
{
TRACE("Can't obtain ProductName and ProductVersion from resources\n");
return false;
}
strProductName.SetString((LPCSTR)pvProductName, iProductNameLen);
strProductVersion.SetString((LPCSTR)pvProductVersion, iProductVersionLen);
return true;
}
Something like this will give you raw access to the resource data and get you started:
HRSRC res = ::FindResource(NULL, MAKEINTRESOURCE(MY_VERSION_ID), RT_VERSION);
DWORD size = ::SizeofResource(NULL, res);
HGLOBAL mem = ::LoadResource(NULL, res);
LPVOID raw_data = ::LockResource(mem);
...
::FreeResource(mem);
Beware! Using FindResource..LockResource is not correct. It will sometimes work (as it did in my small demo program) and sometimes cause access violations (example: the production code I was making the demo for).
The VerQueryValue() documentation states that you should call GetFileVersionInfoSize and GetFileVersionInfo instead. Raymond Chen explains, see http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2006/12/26/1365215.aspx