When good functions [seem to] go bad

re: When good functions [seem to] go bad

Jeremy Drake — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 23:11:29 GMT

@Little Commenter: the docs for GetFileVersionInfoEx say of FILE_VER_GET_NEUTRAL: "This flag must be combined with FILE_VER_GET_LOCALISED." The description of what happens in this case seems to match the behavior of GetFileVersionInfo, which is what the original poster had problems with.

re: When good functions [seem to] go bad

Little Commenter — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 20:51:20 GMT

GetFileVersionInfo is getting info from MUI files (when available) and merges this info with fixed info from language neutral file.

My proposed answer: Use GetFileVersionInfoEx and pass as first parameter FILE_VER_GET_NEUTRAL. This way you will obtain the resource from the language neutral file, not from the MUI file.

re: When good functions [seem to] go bad

Jeremy Drake — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 18:48:30 GMT

It's always good when you can tell the user to RTFM:

msdn.microsoft.com/.../ms647003(v=VS.85).aspx

"""

Remarks

File version info has fixed and non-fixed part. The fixed part contains information like version number. The non-fixed part contains things like strings. In the past GetFileVersionInfo was taking version information from the binary (exe/dll). Currently, it is querying fixed version from language neutral file (exe/dll) and the non-fixed part from mui file, merges them and returns to the user.

"""

I suppose you could format the version number yourself from the fixed part (the binary version number). That's what I tend to do (though I don't put anything other than the raw dot-delimited four-part version number in the string version field). Or you could try to convince GetFileVersionInfoEx to give you the lauguage-neutral non-fixed data (though the FM on that function doesn't tell you what flag to pass for that, I assume it's 0, none of the above), if you can even use that function since it is only available on Vista+, and most people still have to support at least XP. Or you could use the resource functions directly to look up the RT_VERSION data (FindResourceEx says passing MAKELANGID(LANG_NEUTRAL, SUBLANG_NEUTRAL) gives you the resources for the current thread's current language, so how would you specify you want the neutral version of the resources?). Or if all that fails, you could always go traipsing around in the PE file format and that way be sure nobody's pulling any slight-of-hand with which file's data you get back. In case you can't tell, I tend to really hate it when the system thinks it's smarter than me and tells me "You asked for info from *this* file? I'm sure what you really wanted is info from this *OTHER* file, so I'll just return that instead." That's right up there with "You want to know what version of Windows you're running on? Good luck with that. Here, let me *lie to you* about that so you can try to load the wrong driver and with any luck, that will bluescreen the system and really annoy the user."

But let's go back to the original question for a second. Trying to query the version of a DLL at runtime generally tends to be used for figuring out if it supports a given feature. Better to test for that feature directly, and only if that's not possible, fall back to comparing the binary version from the "fixed data" that's not returned from the MUI anyway.

re: When good functions [seem to] go bad

Ivan Rouzanov — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 17:53:00 GMT

"In the past GetFileVersionInfo was taking version information from the binary (exe/dll). Currently, it is querying fixed version from language neutral file (exe/dll) and the non-fixed part from mui file, merges them and returns to the user. If the given binary does not have a mui file then behavior is as in previous version."

msdn.microsoft.com/.../ms647003(VS.85).aspx

re: When good functions [seem to] go bad

Milan — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 15:50:38 GMT

Acording to documentation (msdn.microsoft.com/.../ms647003(v=vs.85).aspx):

File version info has fixed and non-fixed part. The fixed part contains information like version number. The non-fixed part contains things like strings. In the past GetFileVersionInfo was taking

version information from the binary (exe/dll). Currently, it is querying fixed version from language neutral file (exe/dll) and the non-fixed part from mui file, merges them and returns to the user. If the given binary does not have a mui file then behavior is as in previous version.

My .mui contains "File Version: 8.00.6001.18702 (longhorn_ie8_rtm(wmbla).090308-0339)" in it's dynamic part so GetFileVersionInfo returns it.

I guess filever is not using GetFileVersionInfo but parses resource directly.

re: When good functions [seem to] go bad

Michael S. Kaplan — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 15:25:16 GMT

Go on...

re: When good functions [seem to] go bad

Milan — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 15:15:28 GMT

With hint it's trivial, there's .mui file involved.