How do I read from a version resource in Visual C++

Question

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).

Answer 1

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);

Answer 2

Ok, a bit more googleing found the following on CodeGuru. Basically this approach uses the CFileVersionInfo object to get on any given file. It should be interesting to see if it works on the currently running .EXE file and on Windows CE.

Answer 3

Something like might get you started, perhaps:

TCHAR moduleName[MAX_PATH+1];
(void)GetModuleFileName(AfxGetInstanceHandle(), moduleName, MAX_PATH);
DWORD dummyZero;
DWORD versionSize = GetFileVersionInfoSize(moduleName, &dummyZero);
if(versionSize == 0)
{
 return NULL;
}
void* pVersion = malloc(versionSize);
if(pVersion == NULL)
{
 return NULL;
}
if(!GetFileVersionInfo(moduleName, NULL, versionSize, pVersion))
{
 free(pVersion);
 return NULL;
}

UINT length;
VS_FIXEDFILEINFO* pFixInfo;
VERIFY(VerQueryValue(pVersionInfo, const_cast<LPTSTR>("\\"), (LPVOID*)&pFixInfo, &length));

Answer 4

Edit: Thanks to an anonymous downvoter, I revisited this question. To the downvoter: a comment would have worked better, letting me know why you thought this was a bad answer. Anyway, I discovered the answer by Isluis and realized that my answer needed updating. Here's a new version of my code; I've deleted the old one, even though it worked for me and the original poster.

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((LPCTSTR)pvProductName, iProductNameLen);
    strProductVersion.SetString((LPCTSTR)pvProductVersion, iProductVersionLen);

    return true;
}

Answer 5

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