How can I read details of file?

Question

How can I read details of an exe file like File Version, Product Version and anything else stored in Details tab in Properties window of that file? Thanks.

Answer 1

This has been described at About:

• https://web.archive.org/web/20050919084715/http://delphi.about.com/cs/adptips2001/a/bltip0701_4.htm

Basically, you just use the GetFileVersionInfo function to obtain the data and then VerQueryValue function to read it.

Because these API functions are a bit 'hard' to use, I have written a simple example:

type
  TEXEVersionData = record
    CompanyName,
    FileDescription,
    FileVersion,
    InternalName,
    LegalCopyright,
    LegalTrademarks,
    OriginalFileName,
    ProductName,
    ProductVersion,
    Comments,
    PrivateBuild,
    SpecialBuild: string;
  end;

function GetEXEVersionData(const FileName: string): TEXEVersionData;
type
  PLandCodepage = ^TLandCodepage;
  TLandCodepage = record
    wLanguage,
    wCodePage: word;
  end;
var
  dummy,
  len: cardinal;
  buf, pntr: pointer;
  lang: string;
begin
  len := GetFileVersionInfoSize(PChar(FileName), dummy);
  if len = 0 then
    RaiseLastOSError;
  GetMem(buf, len);
  try
    if not GetFileVersionInfo(PChar(FileName), 0, len, buf) then
      RaiseLastOSError;

    if not VerQueryValue(buf, '\VarFileInfo\Translation\', pntr, len) then
      RaiseLastOSError;

    lang := Format('%.4x%.4x', [PLandCodepage(pntr)^.wLanguage, PLandCodepage(pntr)^.wCodePage]);

    if VerQueryValue(buf, PChar('\StringFileInfo\' + lang + '\CompanyName'), pntr, len){ and (@len <> nil)} then
      result.CompanyName := PChar(pntr);
    if VerQueryValue(buf, PChar('\StringFileInfo\' + lang + '\FileDescription'), pntr, len){ and (@len <> nil)} then
      result.FileDescription := PChar(pntr);
    if VerQueryValue(buf, PChar('\StringFileInfo\' + lang + '\FileVersion'), pntr, len){ and (@len <> nil)} then
      result.FileVersion := PChar(pntr);
    if VerQueryValue(buf, PChar('\StringFileInfo\' + lang + '\InternalName'), pntr, len){ and (@len <> nil)} then
      result.InternalName := PChar(pntr);
    if VerQueryValue(buf, PChar('\StringFileInfo\' + lang + '\LegalCopyright'), pntr, len){ and (@len <> nil)} then
      result.LegalCopyright := PChar(pntr);
    if VerQueryValue(buf, PChar('\StringFileInfo\' + lang + '\LegalTrademarks'), pntr, len){ and (@len <> nil)} then
      result.LegalTrademarks := PChar(pntr);
    if VerQueryValue(buf, PChar('\StringFileInfo\' + lang + '\OriginalFileName'), pntr, len){ and (@len <> nil)} then
      result.OriginalFileName := PChar(pntr);
    if VerQueryValue(buf, PChar('\StringFileInfo\' + lang + '\ProductName'), pntr, len){ and (@len <> nil)} then
      result.ProductName := PChar(pntr);
    if VerQueryValue(buf, PChar('\StringFileInfo\' + lang + '\ProductVersion'), pntr, len){ and (@len <> nil)} then
      result.ProductVersion := PChar(pntr);
    if VerQueryValue(buf, PChar('\StringFileInfo\' + lang + '\Comments'), pntr, len){ and (@len <> nil)} then
      result.Comments := PChar(pntr);
    if VerQueryValue(buf, PChar('\StringFileInfo\' + lang + '\PrivateBuild'), pntr, len){ and (@len <> nil)} then
      result.PrivateBuild := PChar(pntr);
    if VerQueryValue(buf, PChar('\StringFileInfo\' + lang + '\SpecialBuild'), pntr, len){ and (@len <> nil)} then
      result.SpecialBuild := PChar(pntr);
  finally
    FreeMem(buf);
  end;
end;

Try it. But beware -- currently, this only works for en-us EXEs! It doesn't work for most of the EXEs on my Swedish machine, for instance. It is late now; tomorrow I will extend this to work with any EXE language, if only I get some time left. [The About.com code has the same problem, but they don't even pretend it is a problem!]

Update: The code now works with any EXE language.

(Swedish)