Change resources of compiled application?

[Tschieses]

Is it possible to change the product name and application icon of a compiled vb.net application (exe-file) ?

I wanna load the icon and application informations of any exe-file and change my exe file to take over this infos.

That should be possible, but how?

[Grimfort]

I just wanna check this. You want to pick an existing .exe file, copy its name, its icon (possibly edit date ?) and then replace it ?

Or... do you want to be able to change the .exe file name and icon of your already completed .exe file because its going to different customers ?

[Tschieses]

I want that my VB.NET Executable thake over an other Executable.

For that i need the following functions:

1. Load Icon and Product name out of any executable
2. Overwrite infos about icon and product name of my VB.NET executable

[Grimfort]

Well, I doubt you will get any replies, as the only reason for doing such a thing is to write some kind of virus that pretends to be something its not. I cannot think of any valid reason why you would want to do this. If you give a good reason, Im sure some1 may help, until then, your own your own.

[Tschieses]

Hard words man

The only thing my program should do is to start an application with a different date.
When it takes over any exe i don't have to change all that fu**ing links in the explorer and registry.

Hope you still wanna help.

[Grimfort]

I still dont understand your reasoning, there may be a different way to do what you ask, that doesnt involve you writing an application that could be used in a malicious way. Explain what your end result is, and maybe we can figure something out.

[Tschieses]

My program has following functionallity:

My program = RetroActive.exe
Target program = Anyname.exe

1. Rename Anyname.exe to Anyname.retroactive.exe
2. Rename RetroActive.exe to Anyname.exe (take over original program)
3. Load Icon and product name of Anyname.retroactive.exe
4. Write Icon and product name into Anyname.exe (take over icon and product infos)

Now when you run Anyname.exe the following happens:

1. Store current date and time
2. Changes date and time to a preselected value
3. Run Anyname.retroactive.exe
4. Reset date and time to old value

That's it.
I need this because the target program(s) should start with an older systemtime.

[Grimfort]

OK, I understand why you are replacing the phsyical .exe file, but do you really need to change the icon and product name ? If the replacement is valid, the users wont mind seeing a different icon.

The data you wish to change I believe can only be done at compile time, so you will either have to re-compile the .exe file with the extracted info, or use an external .ico file and tell your shortcuts to use that.

You must be able to see that your reasoning sounds dodgy, almost like you are trying to get round a time-locked application by faking the system time. I apoligise for sounding hostile, but too many people try to use others well learnt information for illegal reasons.

[Tschieses]

The problem is that in the "Open With"-Dialog and on other places in the system the original name of the application is replaced by 'RetroActive' (name of my little app).
NT-Systems can change these infos via API but i don't know how

Looks like i should take a further look into the MSDN Library

[edit]
Sure, it would be possible to get round a time-lock with this application but that's not the reason i develop it.

And posting the code snippets i need wouldn't make it possible for n00bs to crack time-locks
[/edit]

[Grimfort]

better safe then sorry.


.Net uses attributes to retrieve the information such as product name. However, I dont know if you can change them mid-flow.

[Take0n]

I want to do something similiar (sorry if I am not spelling correct) to what tschieses wants. I want to replace every ico file within an .exe or .dll file. I have made a program that load ico files of other files (i.e. dll or exe) to a listview component but I also want to make a replacement possible, just like librarian in microangelo. I couldn't find a way to do this.. I have already posted my question in this forum aswell as in 20 others but no response... Could someone help me plz?

Thanks