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Resource editors for XP x64.


johnhc

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Kelsenellenelvian,

I saw a reference to you in the WinCert forum about Restorator, the program used to modify system resources. It is a non-free version of ResHacker that works on XP x64. Are you, or anyone else for that matter, familiar with it? I see it has a 30 day trial. My question is does it quit working after 30 days or just bug you to death? Paying $95 for a possible one time deal seems unreasonable.

I know this is off subject, but I hope people won't mind.

Thanks for any help.

John.

Edited by johnhc
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No one seems to know about or be interested, but I report here my experiences. I DLed and installed the trial version (on VMware). When started it, it opened two dialog boxes, one with a 10 second timeout (every start). When I saved an edited DLL, it warned about including information in the saved file, but I was surprised when I saw it had added entries to most of my right click context menus. It is simply the URL for the Restorator web site and it either does not do anything or goes to Properties. I also notice it added a tab to the dialogs when a menu item was clicked. Some of these are new and some have replaced the name of an original tab. Now here is the wild part, they persisted over an install(which included the edited DLLs). I assume the first time one of the DLLs is run, it puts in these context menu items. This is truly an evil trial program. It did perform the function I ask of it. I wish there was an alternative for editing XP x64 DLLs.

Enjoy, John.

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x-Shadow-x,

Thanks for the reply. I agree Resource Tuner is very nice, but it does not support XP x64, which I am running. Resource Tuner Console does support 64 bit, but it is a command line program that requires writing scripts. It is intended for changing many resource files at once and I was not inclined to learn the script.

I tried XN Resource Editor and it worked but had no replace function. The only way I could figure out to replace an entire bitmap was to open the new one in Paint and copy it to the clipboard and paste it into the old one in XN. Sometime that messed up the colors in the image. XN also threw errors like 'Failure to access the clipboard' and 'OS call failed'. I decided it was too much trouble and probably dangerous.

I then tried Explorer Suite (CFF) and that worked fine. It had a replace function for the bitmap images I wanted to replace in a couple of DLLs. I did not try the Resource Tweaker extension (DLed separately) that claimed to allow other utilities (such as Resource Hacker, which was the screen shot example) to work on 64 bit PEs.

I should also report, when I replaced the original DLLs that I altered with Restorator, the objectionable extra items that came with my context menus disappeared. They did not return when I used Explorer Suite to edit the same DLLs. I am good now.

Enjoy, John.

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You can use UniExtract to unpack or expand installers and then run the program binary directly. I would run it as a limited user so it cannot change system files, folders, or registry keys (such as shell extensions).

http://legroom.net/software/uniextract

Also what do you mean by does not support 64 bit? Do you mean that a native x64 build is not available because x86 binaries run perfectly on x64 versions of Windows. I just tried Resource Hacker (ResHack) on Vista Ultimate x64 SP1 without any compatibility shims and it seems to work fine. :)

http://angusj.com/resourcehacker/

Or do you mean the installer complains? Or do you mean the program cannot view/extract/replace the file resources?

Another program that hasn't been mentioned is Boilsoft Resource Hunter

http://www.boilsoft.com/rchunter.html

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DigeratiPrime,

Thanks for your reply.

Also what do you mean by does not support 64 bit? Do you mean that a native x64 build is not available because x86 binaries run perfectly on x64 versions of Windows. I just tried Resource Hacker (ResHack) on Vista Ultimate x64 SP1 without any compatibility shims and it seems to work fine.

All of the programs install and run fine on my machine but when I try to open a 64 bit DLL, I get an error message that the file is invalid or corrupt. ResHack and Resource Tuner install (RT) and start fine, but issue the error message when I attempt to open a 64 bit DLL. They work fine on 32 bit DLLs.

I took a quick look at Resource Hunter and could see no claim that it supports 64 bit resources. Usually that means it does not and it also is not free like ResHack, XN and Explorer Suite. I certainly prefer free programs for a quick change like this one (paying $50-$95 for a few changes seems silly). I also would expect a program to handle 64 bit PEs on a 64 bit OS. Having problems finding programs that run properly on XP x64 is a curse I accepted when I installed x64.

I failed to note earlier that the help button on XN pulls down 4 items but only the About does anything. This means there is no help text.

Thanks again, John.

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  • 5 months later...
Not that powerful yet, there is no support for menu/dialog/string etc. resources, so outside of the scope of xpize (replacing icons and images), it's not very useful yet.

Yeah, I hear you.

On the bright side, the structures for menus, dialogs, and string tables aren't too complicated so it shouldn't be too hard to implement editors (or at least viewers) for them.

As a stopgap, you could export them as raw binary resources, then re-import them into a 32-bit DLL then use something like Visual Studio or some other editor to alter them, then use Resourcer to re-import them into the 64-bit DLL.

I'm also working on making Resourcer extensible so anyone can write their own editors and resource data type handlers and load them into the program, but that's at least a good few weeks off. Thanks for the feedback though :)

Edited by W3bbo
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