Cosmin Prund wrote: >There a few ways to solve your problem. I'll enumerate a few: >(1) Use an EXTERNAL Manifest (search MSDN or Google for ways to generate >this external Manifest). Since the manifest is not part of your exe you >may use a single version of your exe and "change" it's ability to show >theems or not by adding/removing the given manifest. Unfortunatelly >adding/removing this manifest can't be done from the exe itself, but it >can be done from the installer.
Unfortunately, with regard to External Manifests, in the topic Troubleshooting C/C++ Isolated Applications and Side-by-side Assemblies http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms235342.aspx MSDN states: "On Windows XP, if an external manifest is present in the application's local folder, the operating system loader uses this manifest instead of a manifest embedded inside the binary. On Windows Server 2003 and later versions of Windows, the opposite is truethe external manifest is ignored and the embedded manifest is used when present. " Ugh! >(2) Use two versions of the EXE + a loader. Easy to do if you build your >installation disks with a script. That requires that users read help files so that they know what to install, a known problem. Alternatively if both versions are in the installer's setup files, that requires doubling the download time for a large distribution. That is very undesirable for those who don't have a broadband connection. >(3) An API for enabling/disabling theems for a given window exists. >Using it might be a bit of a pain BUT it should work fine. MSDN and >Google might help. If there are many dozens of windows, this requires a lot of administration. A global solution is needed. I think that one solution might be: Compile without any manifest, so that OS's other than XP are not affected, and then always copy an XP external manifest to the installation directory with the installation program. If a non-XP OS is detected in a setup dll, to delete the XP manifest. Since the manifest is a tiny file, the overhead is negligible. Should other manifests for Vista be needed in the future, more manifest files can be used and the unwanted ones deleted. An alternative to a setup dll may be in those installation programs which can execute an external program when the installation has finished. There, run a small console program which detects the OS and deletes the manifest if the OS is not XP. Neither of these methods is elegant. If anyone sees a flaw in my logic here, please write. Might it be possible to put the manifest into a loadable resource file which is only loaded if the OS is XP, or would that be too late in the execution sequence described by Cosmin to change the appearance in time? Irwin Scollar _______________________________________________ Delphi mailing list -> [email protected] http://www.elists.org/mailman/listinfo/delphi
