How do I programmatically get the version of a DLL or EXE file?

Question

I need to get the product version and file version for a DLL or EXE file using Win32 native APIs in C or C++. I'm not looking for the Windows version, but the version numbers that you see by right-clicking on a DLL file, selecting "Properties", then looking at the "Details" tab. This is usually a four-part dotted version number x.x.x.x.

Answer 1

You would use the GetFileVersionInfo API.

See Using Version Information on the MSDN site.

Sample:

DWORD  verHandle = 0; UINT   size      = 0; LPBYTE lpBuffer  = NULL; DWORD  verSize   = GetFileVersionInfoSize( szVersionFile, &verHandle);  if (verSize != NULL) {     LPSTR verData = new char[verSize];      if (GetFileVersionInfo( szVersionFile, verHandle, verSize, verData))     {         if (VerQueryValue(verData,"\\",(VOID FAR* FAR*)&lpBuffer,&size))         {             if (size)             {                 VS_FIXEDFILEINFO *verInfo = (VS_FIXEDFILEINFO *)lpBuffer;                 if (verInfo->dwSignature == 0xfeef04bd)                 {                      // Doesn't matter if you are on 32 bit or 64 bit,                     // DWORD is always 32 bits, so first two revision numbers                     // come from dwFileVersionMS, last two come from dwFileVersionLS                     TRACE( "File Version: %d.%d.%d.%d\n",                     ( verInfo->dwFileVersionMS >> 16 ) & 0xffff,                     ( verInfo->dwFileVersionMS >>  0 ) & 0xffff,                     ( verInfo->dwFileVersionLS >> 16 ) & 0xffff,                     ( verInfo->dwFileVersionLS >>  0 ) & 0xffff                     );                 }             }         }     }     delete[] verData; } 

Answer 2

All these solutions did not work properly (with my system). I found out that each of the four parts of the version number are saved as a 16-bit value.

The first two numbers are saved in the 32-bit DWORD dwFileVersionMS, and the second two in dwFileVersionLS. So I edited your code at the output section like this:

    TRACE( "File Version: %d.%d.%d.%d\n",         ( pFileInfo->dwFileVersionMS >> 16 ) & 0xffff,         ( pFileInfo->dwFileVersionMS >>  0 ) & 0xffff,         ( pFileInfo->dwFileVersionLS >> 16 ) & 0xffff,         ( pFileInfo->dwFileVersionLS >>  0 ) & 0xffff         ); 

And it works perfectly. The output is formatted like on my system:

major.minor.build.revision