How can I add a description (-> description-colum in task manager) to my program (VS 2008, C++)

Question

Hi, probably a pretty simple question, just couldn't find anything useful with Google. :(

I have a simple unmanaged c++ project in Visual Studio 2008, and would like to add a description text. Right now I just see the name of the executable in task managers description column (processes tab), but I would like to provide my own text there.

Any hints?

Thanks a lot! Johannes

Answer 1

You need to add a VERSIONINFO resource to your project, and set the "FileDescription" property to a string that you want to display.

MSDN VERSIONINFO article

VS_VERSION_INFO VERSIONINFO
 FILEVERSION 4,0,0,0
 PRODUCTVERSION 4,0,0,0
 FILEFLAGSMASK 0x3fL
#ifdef _DEBUG
 FILEFLAGS 0x1L
#else
 FILEFLAGS 0x0L
#endif
 FILEOS 0x4L
 FILETYPE 0x1L
 FILESUBTYPE 0x0L
BEGIN
    BLOCK "StringFileInfo"
    BEGIN
        BLOCK "040904e4"
        BEGIN
            VALUE "Comments", "\0"
            VALUE "CompanyName", "Acme Tea Company\0"
            VALUE "FileDescription", "Acme Automatic Tea Dispenser\0"
        END
    END
    BLOCK "VarFileInfo"
    BEGIN
        VALUE "Translation", 0x409, 1252
    END
END

Answer 2

Now, is there any way to update that value at Run Time? i.e. Is it possible to assign a variable instead of a literal string and update that variable within the application?