How do I poke the flag in a win32 PE that controls console window display

Question

I have an executable which is part of a batch process. This one executable opens a console window, which is annoying since it's useless to the end user and steals focus away from their active task.

We can't compile a new version from of this EXE from source (easily). Is there an easy way to twiddle this setting in the PE?

Answer 1

of course :), change subsystem flag to GUI

IMAGE_OPTIONAL_HEADER.Subsystem = IMAGE_SUBSYSTEM_WINDOWS_GUI

and prey it won't check console handle values ;)

you can also hire me if that doesn't help to do it correctly hehe ;)

Answer 2

Found it.

editbin.exe /subsystem:windows foo.exe

editbin.exe is part of MSVC