Windows: rustc should embed application manifest into executables

[vadimcn]

Windows executables should contain embedded application manifests [1].

This is especially important for 32-bit executables, because in the absence of a manifest they are subject to UAC installer detection heuristics [2], which may cause unexpected UAC prompts or even complete failure to execute (in unattended contexts) depending on presence of certain keywords in executable's file name.

1. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa374191.aspx
2. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc709628.aspx

[poiru]

You beat me by a few hours :) Here is the description I had in #10515:

The UAC issue in #10452 is caused by a missing manifest in the binaries. We should include the following in all binaries:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?>
<assembly xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1" manifestVersion="1.0">
    <trustInfo xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v3">
        <security>
            <requestedPrivileges>
                <requestedExecutionLevel level="asInvoker" uiAccess="false" />
            </requestedPrivileges>
        </security>
    </trustInfo>
</assembly>

In an ideal world, we would allow the user to provide a custom manifest should they wish to require UAC elevation, for example. As another example, a user might want to provide supportedOS entries in order to fully support Windows 8.1 (where the GetVersion()/GetVersionEx() functions lie about the Windows version unless <supportedOS Id="{1f676c76-80e1-4239-95bb-83d0f6d0da78}" /> is present in the manifest).

The VC++ linker has the /MANIFESTUAC option for the UAC part.

In a traditional MinGW build, this would be implemented something like this:

windres -i resource.rc -o resource.o
gcc -c main.c -o main.o
gcc -o app.exe main.o resource.o -s -Wl,--subsystem,windows

Where resource.rc would contain something like this (application.manifest would contain the XML stuff above):

#include <Windows.h>

// ...

CREATEPROCESS_MANIFEST_RESOURCE_ID RT_MANIFEST "application.manifest"

[vadimcn]

I wonder if it would be easier to skip windres altogether and write resource directly into linked executable using Resource API.

[klutzy]

@poiru I use rustc.exe main.rs --link-args resource.o to add manifest but I always felt this is a hack.

[glandium]

As of MSVC 2008, passing /MANIFEST:EMBED to link.exe should add the necessary manifest bits for UAC.