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The
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Release Date:
Oct-19-1998
For additional information about how to download
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in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
119591 How to Obtain Microsoft Support Files from Online Services
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Programmers often want to use files with their
application, but do not want to install these files into the application
directory for fear that the user might delete or modify them. Examples of this
include an RTF or Word file for a "Readme" file, GIF and JPG files for images,
or MIDI files for sound and data files.
One of the ways to
distribute these required files is to include them in a resource file. The
resource file is compiled into the EXE. This makes the included files available
to the program, but keeps the user from being able to modify them.
A
resource file can contain any type of data. It can load certain types of data
directly, such as bitmaps, icons, and strings using LoadResPicture and
LoadResString. Other types of data must be stored in the resource file as a
"custom" resource. Custom resources must be retrieved from the resource file
using the LoadResData function intrinsic to Visual Basic.
Although
the Visual Basic Help file says "The data that LoadResData loads from the
resource file can be up to 64K," this is a limitation for the 16- bit versions
of Visual Basic. The 32-bit versions of Visual Basic have no problem reading
larger amounts of data.
To use the custom resource, you can simply
use the LoadResData function to retrieve the resource into a byte array, then
save the byte array to a temporary file, use the file, and then delete the
temporary file.
The Resfile.exe sample has a reusable module for
handling these resource file operations. This module has two functions to make
the resource file tasks easier.
- LoadPictureResource - This function saves a custom resource
to disk and then executes the LoadPicture function to return the Picture
object. This is useful for including GIF and JPG files in a resource file.
These files are considerably smaller than a BMP, thereby making the resulting
EXE smaller.
- SaveResItemToDisk - This function simply saves a resource
item to disk. Programmers can then deal with the file just as they would with
any external file.
NOTE: The Resfile sample project included is heavily commented;
you may wish to examine the code to gain a better understanding of the
operation of these functions.