CODEWITHSUNDEEP
qtcmake
rkudinov
rkudinov

Reputation: 313

Qt Creator: how to embed custom manifest in .exe

I have a custom Manifest file and would like to embed it inside the executable. I use MS Visual Studio 2010 compiler and Qt 5.2.1.

I use Qt Creator as the IDE and CMake for making release builds. What options should I set in .pro and CMake files?

I tried to pass '/MANIFEST...' like flags to the linker, but they seem to be unsupported by VS 2010 linker.

Upvotes: 5

Views: 2804

Answers (3)

Top-Master
Top-Master

Reputation: 8751

Using below qmake script based manifest injection you do not need to include the manifest in any *.rc file (works for Makefile based compile where qmake does generate the Makefile)

QMAKE_MANIFEST = $$PWD/x86_user.manifest.xml

Note: this works even if we have set the RC_FILE = Res.rc (i.e. since this takes action and injects the manifest to .exe after the compile is done)

you need to recompile to see effect...

Upvotes: 3

rkudinov
rkudinov

Reputation: 313

Eventually I've found the solution.

First it is necessary to add the following line to the .pro file:

CONFIG -= embed_manifest_exe

this will disable embedding of the default manifest file. After that it is necessary to add a windows resource file:

RC_FILE = app_resources.rc

.rc file is usually included to embed version information into .exe, but as soon as manifest is also a part of the executable resources we could reference a custom manifest file in it, just add the following line into app_resources.rc:

1 24 myapp.exe.manifest

where 1 is the resource ID, 24 is the resource type - RT_MANIFEST, and myapp.exe.manifest is the file with our custom manifest. If you don't need version info then app_resources.rc may contain just this single line.

That's it.

For CMake the steps are as follows:

1) include app_resources.rc in the list of sources of the target

2) add the following line to disable embedding of a default manifest file:

set(CMAKE_EXE_LINKER_FLAGS "/MANIFEST:NO")

For some unknown for me reasons /MANIFEST:NO didn't work in .pro file. The linker failed with an unknown option error. However it works in CMake. The linker is the same from VS 2010...

Upvotes: 5

Craig Scott
Craig Scott

Reputation: 10137

I can't help you with the qmake side, but for CMake, you should be able to just list the manifest file as one of the sources of the target. This requires CMake 3.4 or later (see release notes).

Upvotes: 1

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