Resource Hacker FX: the improved Resource Hacker
Remember the good ol’ Resource Hacker?
It’s a popular Resource viewer/editor, I use it to quickly view and edit resources. I tried to find an alternative, but I did not find any that I liked, so I decided to just improve Resource Hacker.
Here is a patcher that needs to be used on the original Resource Hacker v3.6.0.92:
Resource Hacker FXer.rar (114.08 kB, changelog)
Here is how it looks:
What does the patcher change:
- Partial Unicode support.
More details. - A new interface with modern icons and a manifest.
Icons by Yusuke Kamiyamane. - Resource Hacker FX does not create tree nodes for every language. Usually only one language is used anyway, so it makes it much faster to navigate through resources.
- Resource Hacker FX uses the new open and save common dialogs instead of the old outdated ones. Also, some saving as parameters got improved: the directory of the current file is initially shown, the file name gets filled, the extension is automatically added if not specified.
- If you have a modified file open and you close Resource Hacker FX, you have a Cancel option when asked whether you would like to save the file. Also, if you choose to save it, it just gets saved instead of saving as.
- The Hex viewer shows only the first 10 KB of the binary resource by default to prevent hanging Resource Hacker FX. I could not really fix it, as it’s the Rich Edit control’s fault, it’s quite slow with large texts. Well, it’s not too smart to use Rich Edit to view a Hex dump, but that’s how it works. 10 KB should be usually enough to understand what the resource is about. If it isn’t, you can hold shift to load the whole resource.
- Some more small stuff, like e.g. double click to replace resource, minimizing/maximizing effects.
thank’s. is amazing software..
v1.4.5:
* Fix: dialog editor text was treated as UTF-8 instead of ASCII, which prevented from correctly translating Resource Hacker FX.
It’s really useful and saves a lot of time (eg shell32.dll), no more tree, or “out of system resources” ! really, thank you !
v1.4.6:
* Fixed a crash when viewing specific bitmap images.
v1.4.7:
* Fixed AVI preview loop abortion (stop failed if you triggered it on the last frame).
Resource Hacker FXer.exe doesn’t seem to work for me. I put it in the install directory for Resource Hacker and ran it. When the little box opened, I browsed to ResHacker.exe and opened it. The message “Ready to fix” appeared, so I clicked on “Fix it!” and the message ” Could not copy file” appeared.
Did I go wrong somewhere ?
Is Resource Hacker installed in Program Files? Try to run the patcher as administrator.
Thank you.
That was it; I needed to right click “Run as Administrator”. I’ve had to do this before with other things (opening an elevated cmd prompt for instance), but I forget because I’m always loged on as administrator. Not sure why that’s not enough, but sometimes it’s not.
Also, small item, Program Files x86 on 64 bit win 7.
The answer is UAC:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Account_Control
Hi, is there a way to see the explorerframe.dll from Windows 8 as text an not as hex code?
I mean UIFILE –> 4096
thanks für RH FX
Hello, how can I extract all [IMAGE] resources to PNG files?
the program has a script that make all as *.bin files…
Do I need to convert them to PNG? How?
“IMAGE” is not a standard resource type, so reshacker doesn’t know they’re PNG, and saves them as *.bin.
Try to rename the *.bin files to *.png.
Works, thanks.
To do it Automatically – Is it feature you would like to add to Resource Hacker FX?
I don’t plan to. I don’t find it worth the spent time.
You just made it even more fun to mess around with my windows 7
Thanks !
It gives me the message “file doesn’t look like resource Hacker” but I am pointing it a the installed reshacker.exe file. I’ll try to uninstall and re-install to see if that fixes it.
Yep. That did it. I guess my version must have been old or something. Sorry to double post, I just wanted anyone else with the same problem to know the solution. Thank you!
is it for windows 8 too??
Yes
oh ok thank you!
hey awesome friends, i’m still having a problem, i still get “out of memory” error when trying to replace an exe’s icon with any other icon with smooth transparency (those png’s with alpha-transparency) no matter if it’s a 256 or 96 pixels wide. Any other non-transparent png-renamed-ico will work fine no matter of the file size. Only answer if you have loads of spare time, i’m not hanging on strings, just thought there’s no harm in asking
[solved] by using proper .ico files made out of those cool alpha-png’s. although, it was pretty hard to come by a free tool to do that, found my salvation in Evanold’s dll plugin for Paint.NET
This is almost two years old, but when I saw someone else was still working with ResHacker, I went ahead and recompiled its help file as a .chm rather than .hlp, and reformatted it to be a bit less ugly. I put it and the source up on my dropbox for now; if you’d like to add it to a repository of any sort you’re welcome to it.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/uicb9p2ytrdr48q/I-q_p2n9X5?m
Righteous stuff here Mr. RaMMicHaeL ,thank you Sir. Skoal also to you Mr. Bowman..Im hoping that those help files were meant for all to use, cuz I snatched up a set of those as well. If either of you men ever make er out to the forbidden lands of Wyoming look me up as I owe ya each a burger and a frosty nug. O.d.C
Thank you for your software!
Quick question, are any of the following original files needed afterwards or can they be deleted?
- Dialogs.def (what is this for?)
- ResHacker.cnt (is this the helpfiles buddy?)
- ResHacker.hlp (helpfile does not work in W7)
- ResHacker.exe (original ResHacker.exe file)
I have deleted them and ResHacker FX seems to work just fine.
Dialog definitions, like window styles and standard control default parameters. It’s best to leave it.
Yes, looks like it’s the help’s table of contents.
You can install the Windows Help program for Windows 7:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=91
Otherwise, you can delete it.
Note that there was a .chm file published here, which works by default:
http://rammichael.com/resource-hacker-fx/comment-page-2#comment-2578
Can be deleted if you plan to only use the FXed version.
If we delete the original ResHacker.exe, does your patcher patch your own ResHackerFX ?
Or does we backup the original ResHacker.exe?
Thanks.
I didn’t understand your question.
The patcher creates ResHackerFX.exe based on ResHacker.exe. Afterwards, ResHacker.exe can be deleted.
Yes, thanks for reply.
So, your patcher only patch the original ResHacker.exe and for further more updates from you we better make a backup from the original ResHacker.exe. Thanks.
how to use Resource Hacker FX as default right click extension?
The simplest way is to rename ResHacker.exe to ResHacker_original.exe or something similar, then rename ResHackerFX.exe to ResHacker.exe.
ok. thanks for quick reply
Whenever I try to open it, this error shows up:
http://im40.gulfup.com/0cnco.png
Please reply me back at my e-mail.
“modern icons” look terrible when system color of window is not white.
I’m aware of that, but I don’t think there’s an easy way to fix this. The format Resource Hacker uses for the icons is bmp with a special color for transparency. The “modern icons” require real transparency.
You can always edit Resource Hacker and put back the original icons. Fetch Bitmap -> SMALLICONS from the original executable, and put in in the FX exe.
It doesn’t work.
Old icons are displayed with opaque background (dark cyan).
You are right.
I’ve modified the code so that it could handle 24-bit bitmaps. For this reason you should convert the original 4-bit image to 24-bit format as well. You can use paint, save as and choose 24-bit Bitmap.
It worked. Thank you!
I think the easiest way to fix it, is to use real icons.. just override the Imagelist creation..
Easiest, not necessarily easy.
Do you have a simple solution to this?
I thought ImageList_LoadImage might support icons, but apparently it doesn’t.
sometimes you need to think out of the box..
of course it doesn’t support icons. just redirect it some where, then dynamically load some API, such as ImageList_Create, ImageList_ReplaceIcon , then return the imageList…
If I remember correctly ImageList_LoadImage is called only once at application start up. but to be sure, make some guard before overriding it..
hope this helps..
Done in v1.4.10
Actually, an old WinAPI documentation I have (from 1996) says that ImageList_LoadImage supports icons.
I don’t know whether it was really supported in the past, or if it is an error.
Anyway, I did it with ImageList_ReplaceIcon.
I’ve encountered an issue, though.
Apparently the icons get redrawn every time focus is gained/lost, without clearing the previous icons behind, which screws up the transparent pixels.
The TVS_EX_DOUBLEBUFFER seems to fix it, but it isn’t available in Windows XP, so the bug still presents there.
Tell me if you know how to fix it.
P.S. I’ve also tried it with the Explorer visual style, but I didn’t like the way it looks:
http://i.imgur.com/6ayo1k6.png
Cool
Really sorry but I have no Idea about it.
v1.4.10 fixes the issue – now the icons look good on every background.
Bug Report
Try to save a BMP from a .res file for example a skin for dUP (diabolo’s universal patcher) forum.tuts4you.com/files/category/2-dup-skins/
to replace the file with RLE BMP compressed one.
To reproduce:
load the .res in Resource Hacker
save a bigger BMP (the first and last BMP usually) from the .res
Optimize the BMP to RLE BMP (best use Hypersnap and save as RLE bmp or FilesOptimizer).
Import/replace the smaller in file size BMP file and you get an error message.
Do the same with the not patched Resource Hacker (original) and it works! The patched Resource hacker can not replace the bmp and show an error.
Here a sample to test it. Plastic skin (Plastic.res.res): ge.tt/1c9cXfd/v/0?c
The first and last BMP editing/replace with RLE BMP
My result with original Reshacker: ge.tt/4xcsYfd/v/0?c
The plastic skin is part of the official distribution of dUP (official wesite seems to be down at the time (diablo2oo2.di.funpic.de), I mirror it here:
ge.tt/4SbLZfd/v/0?c
Is it possible to fix it so that the modded Resource Hacker from you can do that too same as the not patched original one?
Fixed in v1.4.9.
The bug was introduced in v1.4.6, where I fixed another bug related to bitmap loading.
Here’s a test .res file containing two bitmaps. The first one is the v1.4.6 regression and the second one is the v1.4.6 bugfix. v1.4.9 can view both.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/jwdhvdy0rqzsoyz/reshacker_bmp_test.res?dl=1
I tried to use Resource Hacker FXer, new interface with modern icons and a manifest is still showing same?? Why is that?
The patcher should create a new file named ResHackerFX.exe, which you should use.
Sure, I will try it when i get home!
I opened the Resource Hacker file location and I found ResHackerFX.exe! Thanks man!
Me sale este error al intentar “parchear” el Resource Hacker original que tengo (v.3.4.0.79).
Resource Hacker FXer me dice que el ejecutable de ResHacker.exe no se parece a si mismo????
———————————————–
I get this error when trying to “patch” the original Resource Hacker I have (v.3.4.0.79).
Resource Hacker FXer tells me ResHacker.exe executable does not look like himself????
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/837/errorrh.jpg/
http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/5614/errorrh.jpg
The patcher only works with Resource Hacker v3.6.0.92.
Perhaps I should clarify it in the error message.
¿Y donde descargo esa versión? (la v3.6.0.92), o la version que tengo (v.3.4.0.79) no necesita parchearse?
And where release that version? (the v3.6.0.92), or the version that I have (v.3.4.0.79) need not patched?
http://www.angusj.com/resourcehacker/reshack_setup.exe
Gracias!
Thank you!
ResHackerFX is crashing.
I’ve tried for first time this application and in lees than 5 seconds crashed, really is full of bugs.
I’m here to report a important bug not to critic (but obviously this don’t happens with normal reshacker),
resHackerFX Hangs and need to kill it from taskmanager.
How to reproduce this hang:
1. Get Windows 7 x64 (I don’t tested it with other OS)
2. Load the “Shell32.dll” file
3. Navigate to “AVI” folder and open the resource name “162″ to see it, then open the “163″ to see it and then the “164″.
4. voilá! that’s a hang.
Normal ResHacker says “No MCI device open” error but at least don’t hangs.
Thankyou for read.
Does it crash, or does it hang? There’s a difference.
I tried to reproduce the bug, and for me, ResHackerFX hangs only for a couple of seconds. The same happens with the original ResHacker.
The “No MCI device open” error is something I fixed.
@RaMMicHaeL
Thanks for support
It hangs (don’t crash) but not for an X amount of seconds, it hangs forever and need to be killed from taskmanager, latest version of ResHacker does not hangs in that avi’s, reshacker only shows the “MCI” message but don’t hangs in any second (at least in my case).
PS: sorry for my english
The “No MCI device open.” message shows for me only when you switch from an AVI video to a folder.
Try switching them directly with the mouse, and you’ll see the original ResHacker hangs as well.
Please say if this is gonna be fixed in next release.
Can you add 16bit support. That would really be helpful. Thanks