Version Information Spy

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Contents

• Description
• Compatibility
• Installation & Removal
• Bugs
• Update History
• License and Disclaimer
• Source Code
• About the Author

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Description

Version Information Spy displays the version information stored in an executable file (.exe, .dll etc.), or in 32 bit binary resource files.

Several ways of displaying version information are provided:

• A Windows program that displays version information in its main window, can generate descriptive plain text, XML or HTML reports and can decompile the binary data into the equivalent RC source code.
• A command line application that can display a textual description of the version information or can decompile to RC source code.
• A Windows Explorer context menu handler that displays the version information of a selected file in the main application.
• An Explorer property sheet extension that displays detailed version information in a tab of a file's property sheet.

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Compatibility

The program requires Windows 2000 or later. It also requires Internet Explorer v5.5 (and preferably v6) or later. The program does not run on the old Windows 9x platform.

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Installation & removal

Installation

If you have any early version of Version Information Spy already installed on your system (i.e. any version below version 7.0) you must uninstall the old version before installing the new program.

The installation program for Version Information Spy is named VIS-Setup-x.x.x, where x.x.x is the program's version number. The install program may be distributed in a zip file. If so extract the setup program from the zip file. Run VIS-Setup-x.x.x to start the installation then follow the on-screen instructions.

The program makes the following changes to your system:

• Files are installed as follows:
  • The main program and help files are copied into an installation folder (\Program Files\DelphiDabbler\VIS7 by default).
  • Documentation is copied to the main installation's Docs sub-folder.
  • Uninstall files are copied to the main installation's Uninst sub-folder.
• The registry is updated to store information about the program as follows:
  • A COM Server, FileVerCM.dll is registered.
  • The Explorer extensions (context menu handler and property sheet extension) are registered for several file types.
  • The program's help files are registered with Windows.
  • Both the GUI and command line application are registered with Windows.
  • The HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\DelphiDabbler\FileVer\7 registry key is created and used to store the program's customisation information.
  • The program's uninstall information is registered with the Add / Remove Programs or Programs and Features control panel applet.
• A program group is optionally created in the Start Menu.
• A desktop icon may be created.

Removal

You must close down all Explorer Windows and all Version Information Spy instances before attempting to uninstall the program.

The program can be uninstalled via Add/Remove Programs or Programs and Features accessed from the Control Panel or by choosing the Uninstall Version Information Spy option from the program's start menu group.

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Bugs

Please do report any bugs you find. To do this proceed as follows:

1. Go to the Version Information Tools Issue Tracker on Google Code.
2. Review the list of reported bugs. If the bug you have found is listed and not fixed please add any information you can to the existing report. If the bug is fixed, update to the latest release.
3. If the bug has not been reported please add it. Because the bug tracker is used for more that one application be sure to specify that the bug was found in Version Information Spy and set the Project-VIS. label. Please provide as much information as you can including the program version and which version of Windows and Internet Explorer you are using.

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Update History

See the file ChangeLog.txt for details.

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License and Disclaimer

The executable program's End User License Agreement is displayed by the install program and must be accepted in order to proceed with installation. A copy of the license is installed with the program – see License.txt in the Docs subfolder of the program's installation folder.

Version Information Spy is supplied on an "AS IS" basis, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the license for details.

Version Information Spy installs and requires another DelphiDabbler product – Version Information Manipulator Library (VIBinData.dll). The library was written by Peter D Johnson and is copyright © 2002-2007 Peter D Johnson, www.delphidabbler.com. Portions of the DLL's source code are available from http://www.delphidabbler.com/ under the terms of the Mozilla Public License (http://www.mozilla.org/MPL/MPL-1.1).

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Source Code

The source code for this program along with some required library and component files is available from the program's home page.

The source code is maintained as part of the Version Information Tools project on Google Code. See the project's subversion repository and navigate to the trunk/vis directory for the latest development tree (which may not be stable) or the stable releases beneath the tags\vis directory.

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About the Author

I'm Peter Johnson – a hobbyist programmer living in Ceredigion in West Wales, UK, writing write mainly in Delphi. My programs and library code are available for from http://www.delphidabbler.com/.

I can be contacted via the website.