Version Information Spy

   
Release: 7.1.0
Date: 21 November 2009
O/S: Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT 3.1, Windows NT 4, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003 Server, Windows Vista, Windows 2008 Server

Overview

Version Information Spy displays the version information contained in an executable file or DLL. The program makes version information details available in several ways:

  • Firstly there is a Windows application that displays detailed version information in its main window. The program can generate and display reports about the version information in either plain text or HTML format. It can also decompile the version information into .rc source code. Version information that departs from the Microsoft recommended standard can be highlighted and details of how to revise the source code to meet the standard can be displayed.
  • There is a command line version of the application that writes text reports or decompiled source code to standard output. The reports can be redirected to output files.
  • Two configurable Explorer extensions are also provided:
    • A menu item is added to the Windows Explorer context menu for registered file types. Clicking this menu item displays the selected file's version information in the main application.
    • Additionally, a new tab is added to property sheets associated with specified file types, providing the selected file contains version information. This new tab is named Version Extra. It provides more comprehensive details of a file's version information than is available from the existing Version tab.

Version information can be extracted from any Windows NE or PE format executable files (i.e. 16 and 32 bit exes, dlls etc). Version Information Spy 7 can also extract version information from 32 bit binary resource files that contain a version information resource. Multi-lingual version information resources are supported. The program can read version information from most of the many programs that don't follow the Windows version information specification.

What's New in Release 7?

The following is a summary of the new features introduced in release 7.

  • A Version Extra tab can be added to Explorer's property sheet for registered files.
  • Improved HTML reports can be displayed natively in the application's dialog boxes rather needing to be displayed in an external browser.
  • The ability to suggest how to correct inconsistencies in version information was introduced, as was the ability to generated corrected source code.
  • XP theme support was added the Windows application and property sheet extension.
  • Several usability improvements were made in the GUI.
  • A standard Windows installer, created using Inno Setup 5, replaced the previous console-based installer.

Editing Version Information

You can edit version information in two ways:

  1. "Decompile" a program's version information to RC source code using Version Information Spy. Edit the RC source code manually. Recompile using a resource compiler such as Borland's BRCC32 (supplied with Delphi).
  2. Use my Version Information Editor.

Feedback

If your have any comments on the program or find any bugs, please contact me. Existing bugs and fixes are listed on the bugs tab.