Question

We have a VB6 project that compiles to an ActiveX EXE that happens to have the word “patch” in the filename (it is part of a police dispatch system), which is causing Installer Detection on Windows 7 to think that it requires elevation.

Rather than renaming the EXE, I want to embed a manifest resource into the compiled EXE that will request the asInvoker privilege level. From reading, I know I can do this after compiling the EXE using the mt tool in the Windows SDK, but I’d prefer to put the manifest in a .RES file so that it gets compiled into the program whenever I build the project.

Is there a way to add a manifest resource (resource type 24) to a VB6 project using the Resource Editor add-in? I added the manifest file as a custom resource and tried a few different values for the resource type, such as “RT_MANIFEST” and “24”, and then tested whether it was working by using mt to re-extract the manifest, but I cannot get it to work.

Note: As mentioned on a few pages I visited, I did remember to make the manifest an even multiple of 4 bytes, so I don’t think that’s the problem.

Answer 1

At first, I thought I’d try using rc to create a .RES file that I could just add to my project. I’ve never used rc before, so I ended up on this MSDN page while trying to figure it out.

What was interesting was this description for typeNameId on that page (emphasis added):

Type name or identifier for the
resource. Specify a string name or a
number. If using a number, prepend the
string with a “#” to indicate that it
represents a number. Each resourceType
element must have only one typeNameId
attribute.

I thought to myself, “Well, that’s interesting and probably wouldn’t apply to VB6’s Resource Editor, but I’ll try it anyway.”

Lo and behold, if you add a manifest file as a custom resource, and then change its type to #24 (i.e. use a # prefix), it works! It gets correctly embedded as a manifest resource in the compiled EXE.

Here are the steps in detail:

1) Create a manifest file. I used this one (note that the padding at the end made the file exactly 608 bytes in my case):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?> 
<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0">
    <assemblyIdentity version="1.0.0.0" name="DispatchMonitor" type="win32"/>
    <description>DispatchMonitor RunAsInvoker fix</description>
    <trustInfo xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v2">
        <security>
            <requestedPrivileges>
                <requestedExecutionLevel level="asInvoker" uiAccess="false"/>
            </requestedPrivileges>
        </security>
    </trustInfo> 
</assembly> 
<!-- Padding to make filesize even multiple of 4 -->

2) Open the Resource Editor in the VB6 IDE by selecting Resource Editor from the Tools menu (you may have to enable it first in Add-Ins > Add-In Manager).

3) Create a new resource file if necessary.

4) Add a new custom resource (click the button to the left of the “?” icon).

5) A file selection dialog appears: select the manifest file created in step 1.

6) The resource will be added under a “CUSTOM” folder with an ID of 101 by default.

7) Double-click on the new resource. Change the “Type” to #24 and the “Id” to 1.

8) Save your changes and close the Resource Editor.