All About Resource Hacker! A Brief Tutorial

[charleychacko]

=> How to replace existing Resources ( Bitmaps, AVI, Icons, etc.) in a file?
=> How to add ur own resources?
=> How to change Menus/ Strings?

and so on...

So here I'll try to cover all such questions and many other tips-n-tricks.
So here we go.....

NOTE: I hv divided this tutorial in 2 parts:

PART1 : BASIC INFORMATION
PART2 : ADVANCED INFORMATION

Basic part contains Basic details, like viewing/replacing resources, etc.
Advanced part covers some advance information which is described for geeks. Like Adding ur own resources, using scripts with resource hacker, etc.


PART1 : BASIC INFORMATION


What is Resource Hacker:

Resource Hacker is a Free s/w to edit 32-bit windows files (DLL, EXE, CPL, and many other). U can add/delete/view/rename/modify existing resources in a file using this gr8 piece of s/w.

Download Link:

U can d/l Resource Hacker from here.
U don't need to install it, simply extract the files and run the s/w. It also doesnt make any entry in Registry!

Using Resource Hacker:

When u open a file in Resource Hacker, it shows various directories in left-side pane, like:

AVI
Cursor
Bitmap
Icon
Menu
Dialog
String Table
Accelerators
Version Info

and so on...

These directories vary from file to file!
Following is a small description of these directories:

AVI : This directory contains AVI files.
Cursor : This directory contains Cursor files.
Bitmap : This directory contains Bitmaps.
Icon : This directory contains Icons.
Menu : This directory contains various Menus.
Dialog : This directory contains various Dialog boxes.
String Table : This directory contains various Strings.
Accelerators : This directory contains Shortcut keys.
Version Info : This directory contains version information of the file.

Viewing Resources:

U can view any resource embedded in the file. Simply expand the directory and click on the name of the resource.
Actually each resource contains 3 parts:

Resource Type
Resource Name
Resource Language

Resource Type : Its indicate that the resource is an AVI/Bitmap/Menu/Cursor/Icon/String/etc.
Resource Name : It describes the name of a resource, no 2 resource can hv the same name.
Resource Language : Its the language used in the file. For ENGLISH its 1033.

Changing the Resources:

=> For Icon/Cursor/Bitmap:

1.) Select the resource ( e.g. Bitmap -> 131 -> 1033 ).
2.) Click on Action -> Replace Icon/Cursor/Bitmap....
3.) It'll open a new window, click on Open file with new Icon/Cursor/Bitmap button.
4.) Select the desired resource in the OPEN dialog box and click on Open button and then Replace.

=> For other resources like AVI:

Its a little bit different.

1.) Click on Action -> Replace Other Resource....
2.) It'll open a new window, click on Open file with new resource button.
3.) Select the file and click on Open button.
4.) Now u hv to give the required information for this resource, which I mentioned earlier.

Resource Type
Resource Name
Resource Language

In type give the type of resource, e.g. if u r replacing AVI file then give the type as AVI.
In name give the exact name of the existing resource which u want to replace with this new one.
In language give 1033 for English.

5.) And finally click on Replace button.

=> For Menus/Strings/Dialogs:

To change String/Menu/Dialog boxes, Select the desired resource, e.g., String Table -> 4 -> 1033, and make ur changes and then click on Compile Script button. It'll compile the script and will give ERROR if something goes wrong so that u can correct the problem!