VS_VERSION_INFO and dwFileDate* woes   

About tracking versions of an application: because we do frequent releases 
as part of engineering, I needed to be able to ask users to identify the 
specific release version they are using.

Initially, I settled for a simple C++ preprocessor trick: set the title of 
the application's main window to a string that embedded __DATE__ and 
__TIME__ , macros that the compiler substitutes with respective strings at 
compilation time.

Recently, however, my attention was brought to the VS_VERSION_INFO 
resource, and the fact that Explorer displays the information contained 
therein. So I thought, cool, let's rely on the standard way to track 
application versions.
 [I use VS2005 as my IDE and compiler]

But I was soon disappointed:
 - the dwFileDate* fields of the VS_VERSION_INFO resource are set to 0.
   There seems to be no way to have these fields set correctly.
   I was hoping that the linker would set it to date-time of
   linking, but no luck.
 - Support for updating version numbers nonexistent (or demands special
   "hacks" such as http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q237870/).
    [Xcode for MacOSX has something much better]
 - It is an annoyance that information is duplicated within the
   resource (e.g. version numbers included both in numeric form
   and in string form, both being required according to ms docs).

So I was wondering:
 - Has anyone been successfully using the VS_VERSION_INFO date fields?
   Maybe by using a post-liker processing step to edit the file ?
 - In practice, who is successfully using the VS_VERSION_INFO resource,
   and how do you keep it updated in your release and internal builds ?



Thank you for sharing your experience and for any practical suggestion,
Ivan
-- 
http://ivan.vecerina.com/contact/?subject=NG_POST <- email contact form

date: Wed, 12 Apr 2006 12:24:44 +0200   author:   Ivan Vecerina