About Manifest file

Recently, I encountered a very strange issue, this issue only happens in Windows XP SP3 and Vista. Here are my steps:

1. Create two new folders in desktop (assume folder names are A and B)
2. Copy Microsoft GraphEdit (graphedt.exe) application to A folder, then create a empty graphedt.exe.manifest file as well. Run graphedt.exe, you will see a error message, the graphedt.exe can’t run due to the wrong manifest.
3. Copy Microsoft GraphEdit (graphedt.exe) application to B folder, run graphedt.exe and close it, then create a empty graphedt.exe.manifest file, run graphedt.exe again, you will see the manifest file can’t apply to graphedt.exe. But if you change the last modified time of graphed.exe, the manifest will work again.

It seems Windows will remember the status the first time the EXE uses a manifest file, but also Windows will reset the old remembered status if you change the EXE size or last modified date.