[TOOL] What version is this MER/APA anyway?

AMarks95 said:

I've unzipped the .apa file, and I see the "PRODUCT_VERSION_INFORMATION", "TargetPlatform", and "VERSION_INFORMATION" files. They're all 1 KB and not readable when I open with notepad++. How can I read these files?

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Highlight the text, Plugins > Converter > ASCII -> HEX

Understanding the values is a different story, which I haven't really thought about in a while.

dmroeder said:

Highlight the text, Plugins > Converter > ASCII -> HEX

Understanding the values is a different story, which I haven't really thought about in a while.

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Thanks. I've been using the version tool for a while now, but was hoping I'd be able to find some extra info in those files. Namely, looking for the full version info (minor/patch/build)

AMarks95 said:

Thanks. I've been using the version tool for a while now, but was hoping I'd be able to find some extra info in those files. Namely, looking for the full version info (minor/patch/build)

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Hmm, I don't think that information is in any of those files. My experiments to try to figure all of this out was kind of painful. I needed MER examples from multiple machines and multiple versions. So I was setting up VM's and getting MERs from people.

The only place I know of, or at least remember, where that specific information exists is in the screens gfx files when there is an activex object. It is embedded into the activex properties. If you put an activex object on a screen, export it to xml, you will see fileVersion="xx.x.xxx.x". I have tried to get this from the gfx binary blob in order to fix the rage inducing flaw of locking the application to the version because of that specific property when activex controls are used. I have been unsuccessful though.

If you want to get into the weeds on this, I'd recommend forking my mer_tools on github and spending time poking at all of those files with the olefile module in python.

Any way to make this tool work with .apb files?

AMarks95 said:

Any way to make this tool work with .apb files?

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If I remember correctly, those files change pretty dramatically between versions. I don't use SE so supporting them is difficult.